Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Most bankers know that today’s payments are broken. From keeping pace with evolving customer experiences, to navigating the changing regulatory environment, to overcoming competitive threats from nonbanks, many have become so frustrated they are debating whether to abandon some in-house payments channels entirely. Consumers, too, are becoming frustrated with the …

Consumers have come to expect an electronic payment to happen in seconds with zero or few errors, but for organizations the situation is a little more fraught. At least that’s the feedback from a new report, “The State of Payment Operations 2023,” from Modern Treasury Corp., a payments and financial …

Intuit Inc., developer of the QuickBooks accounting software and related services for small businesses, embedded itself further into the payments business on Wednesday when it unveiled QuickBooks Money. The free product allows businesses to send invoices accepting payment choices including credit, debit, automated clearing house, PayPal, Venmo, and Apple Pay …

Though not as credit and debit card friendly as some industries, the legalized cannabis industry continues to create opportunities for payments companies. Among the latest developments are the release of POSaBIT Systems Corp.’s latest point-of-sale system and a new program from Organic Payment Gateways. Bellevue, Wash.-based POSaBIT says its POSaBIT …

Prepaid card platform Blackhawk Network said it is working with Visa Inc. to convert its Visa-branded cards from plastic to paper-based materials. Payments provider Central Payments released PayCP, its payout platform that initially includes a virtual Discover prepaid card, a physical Discover prepaid card, push to debit cards via Mastercard Send, and ACH bank …

Buy now, pay later provider Affirm Inc. posted fiscal fourth quarter revenue of $445.8 million, up 22.4% from $364.1 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2022. Its quarterly loss of $206 million broadened from $186.4 million a year ago. For the full year, Affirm had $1.588 billion in revenue, up 17.7% …

Growth in same-day automated clearing house volumes slowed in the second quarter, but same-day ACH is still posting impressive gains from 2022, according to the latest data from ACH governing body Nacha. Herndon, Va.-based Nacha says the second quarter saw 199.4 million same-day ACH payments, up 7.7% from 185.1 million …

Real-time payments platform provider Pidgin Inc. has published an eBook detailing key steps financial institutions should be taking to prepare for real time payments. The eBook, published just ahead of the debut of Federal Reserve’s FedNow real-time payments network this month, details how financial institutions can use real-time payments to …

FedNow, the nation’s second real-time payments network set to debut in late July, says 41 financial institutions, 15 service providers, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury will be ready to send and receive transactions. All 57 have completed certification and testing for FedNow. The Federal Reserve said in 2019 …

As the payments industry waits a few more weeks for the expected July launch of the Federal Reserve’s FedNow real-time payments platform, the backer of a real-time payments service that is entering its sixth year readies for more business. Operated by The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, the Real Time …

IHG Hotels & Resorts, with close to 4,000 properties, will use FreedomPay Inc.’s payment technology, the payments provider said. Meanwhile, Helcim launched its Helcim Fee Saver surcharge program. Philadelphia-based FreedomPay says its FreedomPay Commerce Platform will provide the payments functionality for multiple IHG brands, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton, …

Merchant losses from online payment fraud globally will total more than $362 billion in the years from 2023 to 2028, according to a forecast from Juniper Research. So-called swipe fees on credit card transactions will increase Fourth of July costs for U.S. consumers by more than $500 million, according to the Merchants Payments …

JPMorgan Chase has extended its JPM Coin, a blockchain-based settlement token launched in 2019, to euro-denominated payments. More than $300 billion has been processed on the coin since its inception. Transact Campus, a payments provider specializing in colleges and universities, announced it has reached the 1-million mark for number of student mobile …

Mastercard Inc. Monday afternoon said it was looking into reports of problems with processing certain transactions on its network. Both Stripe, a major payments platform, and the U.K. bank Natwest reported issues, though Natwest said the problem had been resolved by day’s end. Prepaid card provider Paysign said it completed issuer certification with …

Some 80% of U.S. consumers say they have used a peer-to-peer payment service at least once, while two-thirds report having used a mobile wallet in the past year, according to the 2023 State of Payments report from card-issuing platform Marqeta Inc. The study surveyed 4,091 consumers in February, including 2,013 in the …

Cross River Bank and Paymints.io Corp., a software-as-a-service platform provider for real estate payments, are teaming up to enable real-estate payments through the automated clearing house. The service will utilize the ACH rails, including same-day ACH payments, as well as wire transfers, to facilitate such payments as earnest money, cash …

Instant payments gratification continues to take hold among businesses and consumers. New evidence of that from a couple of Federal Reserve surveys shows that 83% of businesses and 75% of consumers already use some form of faster payments. Favorable sentiment toward instant payments could increase as 66% of businesses and …

Payrange Inc., a payments provider for the vending and unattended-retail market, announced it has acquired Vagabond, a cloud-based provider of business intelligence for the convenience-retail industry. Terms were not announced. Sales of contactless cards helped payment card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc. increase overall first-quarter sales 8% year-over-year to $120.9 million, with sales …

Payments processor Virsympay, which serves small and medium-size businesses, launched a gateway that supports Google Pay and Apple Pay transactions along with conventional card and automated clearing house payments. Money transfer provider Paysend said Spanish-language content and media company TelevisaUnivision has become a shareholder in the company as part of a multiyear deal …

Payments analysts looking for where the growth is can find it in the automated clearing house network and in debit cards. With respect to transaction volume, no U.S. payment system grew faster over the three years from 2018 to 2021 than the ACH, which posted a compound annual growth rate …