The unexpected announcement late Monday that Square chief executive Alyssa Henry is leaving the company and being replaced by founder Jack Dorsey raises tough questions about how the strategy and direction of the huge point-of-sale payments company might change, experts say. Dorsey, a key founder of what was then called …

The Federal Reserve seeks to work closely with private-sector instant-payment services and plans to carve out a regulatory role to govern developments in stablecoins, a top official at the Fed said Friday. The remarks come in the wake of the Fed’s launch in July of its FedNow real-time payments network. …

Visa Inc., which has been working with blockchain-based currencies at least since the start of the decade, on Monday said it is starting to expand its cryptocurrency services into merchant acquiring, largely for cross-border transactions. The move, which Visa calls a “pilot project,” involves the major merchant processors Worldpay and …

The recently developed ability to accept card payments on an ordinary smart phone, with no additional hardware, has electrified the payments industry. But the technology, known as SoftPOS, comes with complications that could slow progress, a panel of experts warned Thursday. SoftPOS, which as the name implies relies on specialized …

The buy now, pay later craze, which took flight during the Covid pandemic, has turned into a $70-billion-plus segment of the payments industry. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t stirred controversy among acquiring-industry executives, some of whom manage versions of the point-of-sale credit product. That clash of viewpoints emerged Wednesday …

Discover Financial Inc.’s top brass early Thursday stressed that the company’s top priorities are regulatory compliance, customer experience, and long-term growth. The declaration, from temporary chief executive John Owen, was meant to reassure equity analysts and came in the wake of merchant-overcharge and banking-compliance issues that led up to the …

John Owen, a retired banker and member of Discover Financial Services Inc.’s board of directors, has been appointed interim chief executive and president, replacing Roger Hochschild, who resigned Monday after five years running the company. Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover announced Hochschild’s departure following the card network’s disclosure in an earnings call …

PayPal Holdings Inc. announced early Monday that Alex Chriss, a long-time executive at Intuit Inc., will take over in September as chief executive, replacing Dan Schulman, who in February triggered the hunt for his successor when he announced he would retire later this year. Chriss, a 19-year veteran at Mountain …

Debit card networks are gearing up for an expected flood of new online transactions in the wake of a Federal Reserve rule clarification that took effect more than a month ago to require that issuers enable network choice for online as well as in-person transactions. The latest example emerged late …

Marqeta Inc. late on Tuesday announced it will continue processing transactions for Block Inc.’s Cash App card product for another four years under a new agreement between the companies. The renewal will see San Francisco-based Block using Marqeta’s issuing platform through June 2027. The announcement comes days after Block reported …