Wallets could be a lot emptier by this time next year, and it will have nothing to do with the spending capacity of consumers. As Digital Transactions reported in September (“Out of the Chips”), a pandemic-driven shortage in computer chips is hitting the payments industry. Now, as cards expire, issuers …

When the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin in 2009, it seemed that the U.S. dollar and other currencies would have a new competitor. However, radical forecasts of digital currencies becoming the coin of the realm have not come to pass. Will Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies take their place alongside cash …

BitPay Inc. and Verifone Inc. early Tuesday said they are collaborating on a service that later this year will allow U.S. merchants using Verifone devices to accept as many as 11 cryptocurrencies in-store and online.  Consumers will be able to pay with a broad array of crypto wallets, including one …

A new report based on the practices of 100 retailers finds that Apple Pay is available at more of them—97%—than its chief competitors Google Pay and Samsung Pay. That’s according to the 2021 Omnichannel Retail Index, released Monday by FitForCommerce, a retail consultancy, in conjunction with the National Retail Federation. …

New research suggests buy now, pay later users may not be shunning traditional retail credit products in favor of the installment-payment option. That’s one finding from TransUnion LLC’s “Understanding the Evolving Point-of-Sale” report released Thursday. The data show that 76% of the point-of-sale financing applicants had a retail card in …

Contactless credit card transactions caught up to their debit counterparts as a percent of volume in August, with 17% of total card-present volume, as tracked in the monthly PSCU Payments Index, attributed to the payment form. That matches the share for contactless debit transactions. PSCU, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based credit …

Six years after it shut down its last effort in mobile wallets for merchant payments, Square Inc. on Monday announced it is launching a new payments feature that will let users of its highly popular Cash App pay sellers in-store and online. Cash App Pay, which can be used at …

The prepaid market has been upended and shrunk by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s prepaid accounts rule. Prepaid cards were a popular money-management tool for low-income Americans. And even though the cards never generated many complaints, the bureau decided they needed to be heavily regulated. Now, direct-to-consumer prepaid cards are …

The emergence earlier this year of a virulent new coronavirus variant “threatens to reverse the gains made in the first six months of the year” by the U.S. restaurant industry, according to data released Tuesday by the National Restaurant Association. The news comes as eateries have adopted contactless forms of …

Fiserv Inc. is rolling out payment-acceptance technology to food-and-beverage vending machines in multiple markets across Europe in a move that supports mobile wallets as well as global and local payment cards. Selecta Group, operator of the machines, says its network supports devices in 16 countries selling snacks, meals, and coffee …