February, 2026

• 1 February

  The Hidden Costs of Credit Card Surcharging

  

  A surcharge is more complicated than just slapping a fee on a card transaction. For one thing, it’s fraught with myriad compliance and consumer issues. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more of it. Merchant surcharging on credit card transactions is nothing new, but the practice has become more widespread …

November, 2025

• 1 November

  Navigating the Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program

  

  Visa has consolidated its fraud and dispute platforms into a single program. With enforcement under way, here are some guidelines for compliance. On April 1, Visa launched the Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP), a major overhaul that replaced Visa’s Dispute Monitoring Program (VDMP) and its Fraud Monitoring Program (VFMP) with …

October, 2025

• 1 October

  K is for Kiosk

  

  Lower staff costs, better order accuracy, and more volume are big reasons kiosks are taking on more importance in the point-of-sale product mix. Kiosks set up as point-of-sale devices are not new—the first one reportedly was at a grocery store in New York in 1992—but their saturation has amped up …

September, 2025

• 1 September

  How Optimizing Payment Strategies Can Fight Inflation

  

  Here’s how small merchants can mitigate the effects of rising prices while boosting efficiency and pleasing customers. Inflation is a top concern of small businesses today. A Q4 2024 U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index revealed that over half (55%) of small-business owners consider inflation costs the biggest challenge …

August, 2025

• 1 August

  Here’s the Real Reason Interchange Rates Are at Risk

  

  Merchants are right to dispute what they pay for card transactions. Technology has an answer—if the networks will listen. Interchange is the foundation of branded-payments theory: Remove friction at the register for increased sales traffic, at the risk of higher fraud. Yet, despite decades of fraud-fighting tech and policy wins, …

July, 2025

• 1 July

  Splitting the Difference

  

  From leasing to revenue splits, how sales agents get compensated is affected by multiple factors. Revenue sharing for sales agents has a long history in the acquiring industry, evolving as more and more merchants installed point-of-sale terminals and recurring revenue snowballed for independent sales organizations. Though many agents receive 90% …

June, 2025

• 1 June

  The Global Trade War’s Toll on Payments Tech

  

  The Trump administration’s global trade war leaves POS terminal and chip makers little choice but to pass on the cost of those higher taxes to their customers. From economic uncertainty and a roiled stock market to predictions of a recession and stagflation, it’s been a wild ride since the Trump …

May, 2025

• 1 May

  How Restaurants Are Racing to Consolidate Their Tech Stacks

  

  After years of cobbling together disparate systems, restaurants are rethinking their technology and learning that multiple vendors may not be a good thing. Restaurants began jumping into the digital revolution feet first about a decade ago. When the Covid 19 pandemic hit, that pace accelerated as restaurants scrambled to open …
• 1 May

  How Restaurants Are Racing to Consolidate Their Tech Stacks

  

  After years of cobbling together disparate systems, restaurants are rethinking their technology and learning that multiple vendors may not be a good thing. Restaurants began jumping into the digital revolution feet first about a decade ago. When the Covid 19 pandemic hit, that pace accelerated as restaurants scrambled to open …

April, 2025

• 1 April

  The ABCs of Onboarding KPIs

  

  Getting the merchant onboarding process right means merchants encounter no obstacles and acquirers get the data they need—fast. Automation has not only changed the quality of merchant data, it has changed how quickly merchants provide it during the onboarding process. Now, as artificial intelligence tools stream into the acquiring industry, …