With the Covid-19 pandemic still imposing a huge financial weight on the nation’s small businesses and families, many legislators are understandably eager to pursue policies they feel will ease that burden. But lawmakers must be careful that they are looking at policies that really will help. Unfortunately, some sectors—in this …

The U.S. Senator who gave his name nearly a decade ago to a law that caps debit card interchange made it plain Thursday he now has the rates merchants pay for credit card acceptance squarely in his sights. Commenting during a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he heads, …

Cryptocurrency can be a volatile store of value and continues to struggle as a medium of exchange, but merchants in some markets are slowly moving to accept it as a faster and cheaper payment method than cards in the face of complications brought on globally by the pandemic or by …

Thanks to the proliferation of such financial-service technologies as mobile wallets and peer-to-peer and e-cash payments, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, financial-technology providers are closing the gap on unbanked and underbanked consumers’ access to financial services, according to a report from the Electronic Transactions Association. One example cited in the …

By shifting stores and consumers to contactless payment, the pandemic made it easier to stop fraud.  One year into a global pandemic, and our lives will never be the same. The way we work, shop, travel, and entertain ourselves have all seen major changes during a year of living surrounded …

The EMV liability shift for fuel pumps arrives next month. After two deadline extensions, is the petroleum industry finally ready? The date set for the EMV liability shift for U.S. gas pumps is finally upon merchants and the payments industry. There’s no expectation in the industry that the April 16 …

Thirteen months ago, processors were on cruise control when it came to servicing merchants. Then, the pandemic struck and upended their business model. How have they adapted to the new normal? For payment processors, the past 12 months have given a whole new meaning to the phrase “dynamic industry.” The …

There has now been a year of pandemic, but also of regulation, litigation, and malfeasance in the payments business. What’s going on, and has anything really changed? Like everyone else in the “Time of Covid,” the people of payments woke up just about every day last year wondering what new …

Switched transactions dipped 1% for the week ended Feb. 21 for Mastercard Inc. compared to the same week last year, the card network reported. It is the first weekly year-over-year dip in switched transactions for Mastercard so far this year and reflects a swing from 4% growth in the week ended Feb. …

Now that criminals have milked the bulk of their opportunities related to pandemic relief efforts, they are turning their attention back to their old standby, payments-related fraud. Not surprisingly, their target of choice is e-commerce, which has rocketed due to restrictions on the number of consumers allowed in physical stores and …