Cannabis remains a federally illegal drug in the United States, but various states have acted over the past decade to legalize it and sales continue to grow fast enough that the market remains potentially lucrative for processors and banks. An example of how a major financial institution has entered this …
Read More »How Worldpay, OwlTing, and PSQ Are Moving on Stablecoins
The big processor Worldpay said early Tuesday it will work with BVNK, a stablecoin-technology company, to provide to Worldpay clients what the companies say will be “nearly instant global payouts” in stablecoins. The service will be available to clients in the United States and Europe starting in the second half …
Read More »New Markets Are Just the Ticket for Affirm And Nuvei
Ticketing is set for rapid growth, and payments firms are jockeying to get a piece of the action. Affirm Inc. announced early Tuesday it will offer its buy now, pay later option for lift tickets sold through Cali Pass at more than 20 ski resorts, six of them in California. …
Read More »Mastercard Looks to Support Stablecoins in a Deal With Wallet Provider MoonPay
The big card networks have worked for several years to exploit the growing business of transactions based on cryptocurrency, and the latest development emerged early Thursday with an announcement that Mastercard Inc. is looking to enable acceptance of stablecoin-backed cards at the more than 150 million merchants worldwide that accept …
Read More »Stripe Taps Verifone to Make a Major Card-Present Move
Verifone Inc. announced Wednesday it will work with Stripe Inc. to enable Stripe’s payments services on Verifone point-of-sale devices. The move brings e-commerce giant Stripe further into the business of card-present processing and represents Verifone’s latest move to collaborate with major e-commerce payments players, following a recent agreement to provide …
Read More »Global Payments And FIS Celebrate Their Worldpay-TSYS Deal
The massive transaction processor Worldpay is coming to Global Payments Inc., and Global’s top management couldn’t be happier about it as analysts continue to study the $22.7 billion transaction announced last month. “We are so incredibly excited about the Worldpay acquisition,” said Global’s chief executive, Cameron Bready, in an early-morning …
Read More »Crypto Operators Keep Chipping Away at a Merchant Acceptance Barrier
Cryptocurrency remains far from mainstream payments, but it keeps edging closer in the United States and worldwide. Further evidence emerged early Friday with news that the money-transfer platform MoneyGram International Inc. has launched MoneyGram Ramps, an application programming interface aimed at easing crypto-based transfers. Simultaneously, a crypto app called Bitget …
Read More »Mastercard Reckons With a Cap One Impact As Its Crypto Investment Grows
The payments industry may soon be wrestling with the fallout from the upcoming $35-billion merger of Capital One Financial Corp. and Discover Financial Services, and one key question emerging from the deal is how it will affect Mastercard, the network for Cap One’s credit and debit cards. Early on Thursday, …
Read More »Branded Checkout Helps Buoy PayPal As It Eyes Crypto And BNPL
PayPal Holdings Inc. recorded a tepid 1% growth rate in revenue in the first quarter, with overall transaction revenue flat, but the company’s stress on branded checkout appears to be yielding more optimistic results, the company reported early Tuesday. PayPal is also building up its cryptocurrency business and beginning a …
Read More »Regulators Lighten up on Crypto, But Will That Really Matter?
In keeping with Washington’s friendlier attitude toward cryptocurrencies, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Thursday pulled statements they had issued early in 2023 that had indicated a tougher stance on crypto regulation for banks. The regulators’ new approach, as indicated in a statement issued late Thursday …
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