March, 2026

• 17 March

  Stablecoins’ Appeal: Stronger Than You Think

  

  All you fuddy-duds out there who routinely trash cryptocurrency, listen up. Research released last month makes the case stablecoins are moving out of niche applications and into the mainstream of international payments, propelled by fast transactions and perceived security. That’s according to the “Stablecoin Utility Report” from stablecoin-technology provider BVNK, …

February, 2026

• 1 February

  Getting a Charge Out of EV Charging

  

  Are EV charging stations the next big market for payments? They will be if current trends hold up. And signs so far indicate the time to look into this market may be now, before more processors start crowding in. Take the sheer number of EV charging points, or chargers. PriceWaterHouse …

November, 2025

• 1 November

  Visa, Cross Border Payments, and Stablecoins

  

  Still skeptical of digital currencies? That’s understandable, as crypto has yet to prove itself on a mass scale. But indications keep emerging—and have been coming at us at an accelerating pace of late—that the roadblocks to mass usage may not stand much longer. Granted, nobody’s talking about Bitcoin replacing dollars. …

October, 2025

• 1 October

  Is BNPL Unstoppable?

  

  We’ve been getting signals lately that the intersection of short-term point-of-sale lending and payments is likely to be a permanent feature of the landscape. While the continuing popularity of the buy now, pay later phenomenon won the attention of banks some time ago, now credit unions are starting to get …

September, 2025

• 1 September

  Can Processors Help Cut Merchant Costs?

  

  With merchants growing more heated in their opposition to card-acceptance costs, processors are looking for strategies that could help sellers gain from improvements in card authorizations. An important example of this emerged this summer with news from the big Canadian processor Nuvei Corp. It launched a pair of technologies it …

August, 2025

• 1 August

  Crypto? You Can Bank on It

  

  Cryptocurrency—or, as some prefer to call it, digital currency—has always carried with it a whiff of illegitimacy, as if something nefarious is going on with those blockchains. There’s no substance to any of this, but the companies that manage the business are nonetheless keen to advance crypto into the mainstream …

July, 2025

• 1 July

  A New Currency in the Making

  

  This month’s cover story, as you’ll see if you turn to page 23, is all about stablecoins. If you’ve been paying the least attention to news about payments, you may have noticed this species of cryptocurrency has been getting plenty of attention lately. That’s because the companies that run these …

June, 2025

• 1 June

  Will Mastercard Master Stablecoins?

  

  Who says payment cards have to be backed by fiat money? Well, they are if that money is backing stablecoins. Mastercard last month said it is looking to enable acceptance of stablecoin-backed cards at the more than 150 million merchants worldwide that accept its brand. To pull this off, Mastercard …

May, 2025

• 1 May

  A Blow for Sanity

  

  Can the payments industry stop worrying about federal mobile-wallet regulation now? Let’s hope that’s the case now that sweeping regulation that would have impacted all major mobile-payment apps in the United States appears to be headed for oblivion. That’s the state of affairs after the U.S. House of Representatives last …

April, 2025

• 1 April

  Has the Time Come for Stablecoins?

  

  The answer to our titular question may be yes, and sooner than you think. A leading merchant association and a group representing stablecoin interests have thrown their weight behind efforts to bring stablecoins into the U.S. payments mainstream. The move by the Merchant Payments Coalition and the Payment Choice Coalition …