It’s May, and that means it’s time for our annual exercise to seek out and describe the payments players, apart from the big networks, that are rewriting the rules for the digital exchange of value. Since 2004, Digital Transactions has traced the course of payments innovation through its nimblest practitioners—the …

You may have only recently started to hear about payments orchestration. You’re going to hear a lot more about it as payment methods and routing choices multiply. Everybody in the business has heard for years how complicated payments are. In the old days, merchants were local, and all they accepted …

Processors are hoping to tap commerce, and hence payments, in the world of virtual reality. But as the metaverse keeps evolving, what kind of payoff can they expect?  If you’re aware of the metaverse but are not exactly sure what it is and how commerce in it will work, you’re …

As fraud grows more sophisticated, tokenization and encryption have become the foundational components of payment security at the point of sale and online. Without tokenization and encryption technology, it’s a safe bet that today’s ever-increasing volume of digital payments, at the point of sale and online, would not be what …

The Federal Reserve Board on Monday afternoon narrowed the window for the launch of FedNow, its real-time payment service, to the weeks between May and July of 2023. The announcement, which came in a short address by Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard, is the latest in a series of updates …

The buy now, pay later trend is one of the hottest in payments. But rising rates, higher inflation, and stiffer rivalry could cool things off. Few trends in payments have been as explosive as instant credit online or at the point of sale, with no interest if the installments are …

For all its resources, the payments company faces a growth problem it may not be able to solve on its own. This is a story about PayPal, one of the most trusted brands in e-commerce. It’s been one of the most trusted brands in e-commerce for decades. Today, it’s fastest-growing demographic …

Rejections that should have been approvals are on the rise. Are merchants willing to adjust their risk thresholds for a higher approval rate? False positives—legitimate transactions that are declined because they look suspicious at first glance—are a touchy subject for merchants. Not only do they cost a sale, some customers …

It may well be, but its effects are very much with us—and are lasting. Two years after it first struck, as the Covid-19 pandemic seemingly winds down, the payments industry is adapting to changes Covid coaxed into place that will stick around a lot longer than the virus that caused …

The chip shortage plaguing POS terminal makers is starting to inflict pain on payment card manufacturers. The forecast for 2022 is that the worst is yet to come. It was only a matter of time before the semiconductor shortage plaguing manufacturers such as auto and computer makers trickled down to …