Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

BNPL provider Affirm Holdings Inc. has struck a multi-year partnership with payment processor Worldpay to make its Adaptive Checkout solution available to Worldpay merchants. The deal will enable Worldpay merchants to offer consumers bi-weekly and monthly payment options. Worldpay is a unit of the big processor FIS Inc. The deal, …

ACI Worldwide Inc. named Thomas Warsop its president and chief executive effective June 1. Warsop continues to be a member of ACI’s board of directors, which he joined eight years ago. He had served as interim president and CEO since November following the departure of Odilon Almeida, who held that role since …

So-called friendly fraud is a growing problem for many merchants. A report from chargeback-management firm Chargebacks911 reveals that nearly three quarters of the 300 merchants surveyed have seen a 19% increase in illegitimate chargebacks on average so far in 2023 compared to the same period last year. At the same …

ThetaRay Ltd., a U.S. and Israeli provider of transaction-monitoring technology based on artificial intelligence, said France-based payments provider Sylq has contracted to use its customer-screening product. Fingerprint-authentication provider IDEX Biometrics is working with security firm AuthenTrend to offer smart cards for digital authentication in such applications as cryptocurrency wallets. The product’s launch …

British automaker Lotus Cars Ltd. has selected Stripe Inc. as the processor for its direct-to-consumer sales in Europe. The deal will enable consumers to configure, order, and pay for cars online. Consumers can use such payment methods as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and bank transfers. Lotus will be able to …

Some 38% of U.S. small businesses have tried generative AI tools—27% for fun and another 11% to run their businesses—according to an April survey of 1,003 businesses by Web-site provider and payments platform GoDaddy Inc. Such payments companies as Stripe Inc. have incorporated chatGPT, a form of generative AI, to support their …

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 …

Payments provider Priority Technology Holdings Inc. announced it has entered into a so-called stalking-horse agreement to bid on the assets of Plastiq Inc., an 11-year-old payments provider that has entered Chapter 11 restructuring. Terms of the bid were not disclosed. Freshmart, a Puerto Rico-based grocer with seven stores, said it has chosen eGrowcery to …

Citizens Bank has launched the Private Client World Elite Mastercard, which uses tactile notches on the side of the card to help visually impaired consumers determine the type of card they are using—credit, debit or prepaid—by touch alone. The card features different types of notches to distinguish the card type …

Cantaloupe Inc., a specialist in micropayments, announced on Tuesday it has teamed up with Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) to use AWS cloud services and make AWS its preferred provider to handle transaction volume flowing through Cantaloupe’s merchant network. Cantaloupe, which specializes in payments technology for vending machines and self-service marketplaces, handles …

As part of a settlement with Citizens Bank, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is requiring the bank to pay a $9-million civil money penalty for its alleged failure to “properly manage and respond to customers’ credit card disputes and fraud claims.” The agreement is subject to approval by the court. UATP, a …

Small businesses in Canada will reap lower interchange rates in that country, the Department of Finance Canada announced Thursday. The deal suggests a similar reduction is possible in the United States, the Merchant Payments Coalition quickly responded. Both Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. agreed to lower the domestic consumer credit …

Galileo Financial Technologies LLC has reached an agreement with Amazon.com to make its platform available to buyers on Amazon’s AWS Marketplace. AWS marketplace is a digital catalog that features software listings from independent software vendors. Businesses use it to find software that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), a unit …

Cybercrime remains a scourge difficult to tame, according to data from Apple Inc., the Identity Theft Resource Center, and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Apple Inc. late Tuesday revealed it stopped more than $2 billion in fraudulent transactions in its app store in 2022. In addition, the technology giant blocked nearly 3.9 …

Sezzle is fine-tuning the buy now, pay later experience with the debut of its Pay-in-2 product. Just as its name suggests, the new product splits transactions into two payments, which can help expand BNPL to new categories, such as grocery, monthly subscriptions, and other high-frequency categories, Sezzle says. Consumers choosing …

A startup fintech called Engage has launched a communication channel allowing customers and merchants to interact via purchase transactions through card networks. In the hotly contested hospitality point-of-sale market, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. launched the newest version of its Lightspeed Restaurant set of technologies, which is immediately available in the U.S. market. Security firm Sophos said it …

Square, the point-of-sale and e-commerce unit of Block Inc., is the latest technology provider to turn up the heat in the already hotly competitive restaurant POS market. It announced Tuesday the launch of Square KDS, a kitchen-display system on the Android operating platform, and the debut of Square for Franchises, …

Paysafe Ltd. has been all about growth since Bruce Lowthers took over a year ago as chief executive, and on Tuesday he contended the London-based processor is expanding nicely in its key wallet and iGaming markets. “We returned to growth in the second half of 2022,” Lowthers told equity analysts …

Mitek Systems Inc., a provider of identity-verification technology, is teaming up with DarkTower, the cyber-intelligence division of Davidson, N.C.-based IT consultancy Queen Associates, to combat account fraud and identity theft. The partnership grew out the increasing role criminal marketplaces on the dark Web are playing in account and check fraud, …

Fifth Third Bancorp said it has closed on its acquisition of Big Data LLC, a technology platform for health-care payments. Terms were not disclosed Mark Barnett, president of Mastercard Inc. for Europe, said card interchange “represents incredibly good value” with respect to “sharing the costs and benefits of the payment system.” The remarks …