Competitive Strategies

The Federal Reserve Board is set to revisit its longstanding limit on debit card interchange on Wednesday, and most observers expect the Fed to lower it. But ask Visa Inc. about the matter—as analysts did Tuesday afternoon during the network’s September-quarter earnings call—and its top executives outwardly at least profess …

Bitpay, a provider of cryptocurrency-based payments services, said it is working with crypto-technology provider Banxa to enlarge access to payments using digital currency. Shield Compliance, a compliance provider for cannabis banking, issued an open letter to American Express, Discover, Mastercard, and Visa calling on the networks to permit financial institutions …

Numbers from Fiserv Inc. early Tuesday indicate the big processor’s payments and network business for financial institutions is growing at a steady clip, with September-quarter revenue in that business up 5% year-over-year, to $1.71 billion in volume. Riding that wave, the company’s top brass late Monday announced a deal with …

Though the official launch of the Paze online wallet from Early Warning Services LLC isn’t slated until 2024, Paze executives are already demonstrating the product. As many as 150 million credit and debit cards from seven large banks could be loaded into Paze, complete with billing addresses, as Early Warning …

Prepaid payments platform Blackhawk Network said it is working with customer-engagement provider Extole to enable digital rewards and incentives for Blackhawk client merchants. U.S.-based Beame Technologies Inc. said it is working with authentication platform LISNR to offer BeamPay, a mobile-payments service, in Cabo Verde, Africa. U.S.-based business-to-business payments platform Balance said it is working with Hokodo, …

While rewards are the biggest reason consumers choose a credit card, cardholders believe issuers have more room for improvement when developing rewards programs, especially when it comes to personalization, according to Marqeta Inc.’s 2023 State of Credit report. The report reveals that 58% of consumers surveyed cited rewards as the …

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s oversight effort in data-sharing regulation is more than a year old, but with its newly proposed data-rights rule—released last week—the agency is making a substantial move in the field. Under the Personal Financial Data Rights rule, consumers would have the power to share data associated …

Visa Inc. announced it will start a pilot in November for Visa AR Manager, a platform intended to automate more functions in commercial card acceptance. PayNearMe, a specialist in payments for iGaming and sports betting, will add to its MoneyLine platform the “Cardless Cash at ATM” feature from NCR Atleos Corp. …

A day after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau floated a proposed data rights rule, reaction from the payments industry has been largely positive. The rule aims at governing the practice of sharing consumer data through open banking. The proposed rule would require financial institutions to share data at a consumer’s …

Card companies with a heavy exposure to travel and entertainment spending took a beating during the pandemic, but that’s ancient history now so far as American Express Co. is concerned. The T&E giant early Friday reported its sixth consecutive quarter of record revenue, backed by strong cardholder spending and new …