Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Gr4vy Inc., a payments-technology provider, has integrated network-tokenization services from Giesecke+Devrient GmbH into its platform in a move expected to improve authorization rates and cut transaction costs. Owlin, an artificial-intelligence technology developer, launched Owlin for KYC, said to be one platform to screen merchants and to ease onboarding, monitoring, and …

POSaBIT Systems Corp., a point-of-sale system maker for the cannabis industry, said it will acquire MJ Platform, Leaf Data Systems, and Ample Organics from Akerna Corp. for $4 million in an all-cash transaction. The deal will almost double the number of locations serviced by POSaBIT and expands its operations in Canada. …

Data breaches remained at near record levels in 2022, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s annual data breach report. The number of breaches totaled 1,802 last year, just 60 short of the all-time high recorded in 2021, making the total number of breaches in 2022 the second-highest on record. …

Payments provider Sionic said it has agreed to provide its Pay-by-Bank faster-payments service to payments platform iVertical Payments Network to allow consumers to load gift cards directly from their bank accounts. A buy now, pay later startup called Tranch said it has raised $100 million in seed equity and debt funding. The round was …

Priority Technology Holdings Inc. said it will offer merchants gift card products from Factor4 and GiftYa. Doma Holdings Inc., a technology platform for the real-estate industry, said it linked to payments provider paymints.io to allow home buyers to deposit earnest money digitally. The Electronic Transactions Association announced its 2023 board of directors. Eric Hoffman, …

The Digital Dollar Project early Wednesday issued recommendations that include bigger investments by the federal government in researching a tokenized digital dollar. The group also called on the United States to exert leadership internationally in setting global standards for government-issued digital currencies even if the U.S. itself ultimately refrains from …

Point-of-sale system maker Lightspeed Commerce Inc. said it will reorganize as it contends with a shifting economy. Among its actions are the elimination of 300 jobs, accounting for approximately 10% of its overall employees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering regulations governing the fees providers charge for cross-border money wires, according to The Wall …

PayPal Holdings Inc. launched a cross-border money-transfer product called Debit Card Deposit for its Xoom international money-transfer service. Sixty-seven percent of consumers intend to spend the same or more in 2023 as they did in 2022, found a survey of 2,032 U.S. adults. Conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by DailyPay and …

Oracle Corp. launched its Retail Payment Cloud Service to support contactless payments for U.S. retailers at fixed-fee rate pricing. Mercatus Technologies Inc. debuted an updated version of its mobile grocery shopping app that includes seamless cart building and checkout, personalization, rewards and loyalty, and third-party delivery service integrations. MobileCoin Inc. launched Moby, a …

Total card spending per household was up 5.9% year-over-year in 2022, according to new data from the Bank of America Institute. Kubra, which provides a payment network enabling consumers to pay bills with cash at retailers, said retailer Rite Aid joined its network, the 19th to do so. Blaze, a point-of-sale …

Clowd9, a cloud-based payment-processing platform, said it will use 3-D Secure issuer services from Netcetera to authenticate transactions and for access control services. Mastercard Inc. introduced its Mastercard Artist Accelerator program, which aims to assist fledgling music artists through nonfungible tokens and other Web3 technologies.

The number of cryptocurrency hacks globally reached 190 last year, setting a new annual record and exceeding 2021’s total by 44%, according to Comparitech. The value stolen totaled $3.57 billion, exceeding the combined total for 2019, 2020, and 2021. Some 82% of senders of remittances across borders said the cost of living has risen …

Dealer-Pay, a payments-technology provider for automobile dealerships, has integrated its platform with Dealertrack, a management system serving the same industry. Guarda, whose cryptocurrency wallet includes a prepaid Visa card, added five more digital currencies to the 14 it already supports. Supported cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin and Ethereum. Japan-based Smartpay has launched Smartpay …

You wouldn’t know it from all the headline stories regarding the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, but below the surface commerce in digital currencies continues unabated, albeit still at very low volumes relative to commerce in fiat. RocketFuel Blockchain Inc., a San Francisco crypto processor for e-commerce merchants, announced …

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered Wells Fargo Bank to pay $3.7 billion, including a $1.7-billon civil penalty and $2 billion in redress to consumers, for what the bureau says were illegal fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, incorrect charges on checking and savings accounts, and other “incorrect” …

Point-of-sale system maker TouchBistro released its 2023 “State of Restaurants” report that found 76% of restaurant operators changed their POS systems in the past year and 66% used a system with an integrated payment processing service. The study, now in its fifth year, was based on research from 600 full service restaurant …

Not all countries, companies, and persons will suffer equally from inflation in 2023, as Europe will see a decline in economic activity while the U.S. market will experience limited economic growth, forecasts the Mastercard Economics Institute. Food-service provider Sodexo North America’s InReach unit has contracted with payments provider Cantaloupe to upgrade 18,800 vending machiens and …

Jitters about the economy and the impact of the FTX implosion may have combined to clobber the cryptocurrency market, but new data shows that app downloads peaked as long as a year ago. In fact, downloads of crypto trading apps from the App Store, and Google Play, along with direct …

Curve OS Ltd. said it secured a deal with Credit Suisse to fund its first $1 billion in installment loans, via its Curve Flex product, in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. London-based Curve announced Curve Flex in 2021. A survey from Bango PLC of 2,500 U.S. subscription users found that 65% said …

Digital-currency platform Circle Internet Financial Corp. said it and Concord Acquisition Corp. have agreed to terminate a merger the companies had agreed to in July 2021 and amended in February. Nine-year-old Circle posted its first profit in the third quarter, with net income of $43 million. A 2-year-old U.K.-based e-commerce payments provider called Wamo said …