Affirm Inc.’s shares soared early Thursday as the buy now, pay later platform reported revenue and profit results late Wednesday that topped analyst expectations and may indicate the online and point-of-sale lending trend, which emerged with force during the pandemic, retains plenty of momentum. The positive results also followed Affirm’s …
Read More »As EV Charging Stations Spread, BlueSnap Links With EV Connect for Payments Processing
The number of public charging stations for electric vehicles has nearly doubled over the past five years to more than 61,000, and that’s leading some major payments platforms to view these venues as an increasingly important market. In the latest development, EV Connect, a business-service provider for these stations, has …
Read More »With Two Major Providers of Real Time Payments, the Request for Payment Takes on a Higher Profile
When the Federal Reserve’s FedNow real-time payments service debuted commercially 13 months ago, the story mainly focused on the general concept of immediate money transfers. But since then the payments industry has been busy refining that concept and working on service-ready applications. One of the most talked-about of these applications …
Read More »Lowthers Cites Steady Progress at Paysafe, But Says ‘We’re Not Done’
When Bruce Lowthers took over a struggling Paysafe Ltd. two years ago, he immediately plunged into what he noted then was a wide-ranging reclamation project. On Tuesday, he called out some progress but also offered a blunt update on his transformation efforts. “We have the right strategy and our execution …
Read More »M&A Is Unpredictable, But Deals Are Emerging As CEOs Plan for Economies of Scale
Payments has always been an acquisitive business, as economies of scale loom large for CEOs and CFOs and buying that scale can often look cheaper and quicker than building it over time. But so far, activity in 2024 is mapping to what was seen last year—which is to say, slow. …
Read More »How Shift4’s CEO Looks to Build Shift4 Into ‘the SpaceX of Payments’
Having finished what its chief executive called “a very busy quarter,” the major processor Shift4 Payments Inc. early Thursday reviewed recent moves in acquisitions, stadium deals, and point-of-sale technology, both for its longstanding position in the U.S. hospitality market and overseas. Even more ambitious initiatives are looming, promised chief executive …
Read More »How Global Payments Looks to ISVs, Payfacs, And M&A to Spur Growth
Global Payments Inc. remains invested in growing by acquisition, but it’s equally committed to growth via third-party agents such as independent software vendors and payment facilitators, its chief executive said early Wednesday as he reviewed his company’s June-quarter results and discussed its strategies in the two markets it straddles—issuing and …
Read More »How FIS Is Banking on Bank Sales Post Worldpay
FIS Inc. isn’t quite the factor in merchant processing it once was, but the big Jacksonville, Fla.-based processor remains a significant factor in digital payments, specifically for banks, its top management was at pains to stress early Tuesday as the company reported its second-quarter results. “We’re very pleased with our …
Read More »Fiserv’s Small Business Index Improves in July But Restaurants Lag
Major payments providers have focused in recent years on signing and providing devices and services for restaurants, but that big bet may be taking at least a temporary beating, according to the latest Small Business Index from the big processor Fiserv Inc. The overall index, which is derived from Milwaukee-based …
Read More »Mastercard’s Chief Executive Laments a Broken Interchange Deal
Mastercard Inc.’s chief executive early Wednesday deplored the recent collapse of a key interchange settlement and highlighted the card company’s rapid progress in tokenization, a key technology that masks actual card data from potential cyberthieves. Pointing to a U.S. District Court judge’s rejection last month of an agreement between merchants and …
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