Consumers and merchants may stand to benefit in many ways from agentic commerce and artificial intelligence, but fraudsters may also see what they consider plusses of the data-centric technology, with Juniper Research forecasting global fraudulent transactions in digital banking and money transfer surpassing 2.2 billion by 2031, influenced by the …

Square is making a big play for independent sales organizations, a merchant-sales model it shunned 16 years ago in favor of direct acquiring. Square, the point-of-sale and acquiring unit of Block Inc., is one of the sponsors of the Western States Acquirers Association conference this week in Palm Desert, Calif. …

Convenience-store chain Kwik Fill, with more than 300 locations in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, will use PAR Technology Corp.’s PAR Retail service for payments, loyalty, and a mobile app. In related news, Transaction Network Services Inc., or TNS, says a new partnership with Unattended Card Payments will boost its …

In an ideal world, a report about the low costs of personally identifiable data that can be stitched together to create a synthetic identity, a proverbial Frankenstein, would be nonexistent. That’s not the world today, however. A new report from Coveron, an identity-theft protection service, outlines how cheap it is …

Sole proprietors on the Cash App platform may have a way to accept payments from consumers who also have Cash App accounts. Cash App, a part of Block Inc., says a test of Cash App-funded payments to a sole proprietor with a Cash App account is under way now. It …

Having launched Mastercard Agent Suite in January, the card brand is expanding the service to make it easier for merchants to create and deploy AI-enabled shopping experiences. It also is launching Mastercard Agent Connect, a service that helps merchants, AI agents, platforms, and payment providers connect and transact via a …

SpotOn Transact LLC is enlisting Maple Inc., an artificial-intelligence voice-platform firm for restaurants, as an integrated service in its point-of-sale suite. San Francisco-based SpotOn says Maple’s AI platform will deliver a native POS sync for users so phone orders captured by Maple flow directly through the POS system into the …

Six Flags Entertainment Corp. is adding the Flex Pay buy now, pay later payment method from Upgrade Inc. to enable guests to make installment payments for season passes and other products. In related news, Visa Canada renewed its partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival, noting that 2027 will be …

Financial institutions pondering how FedNow, the real-time payment service from the Federal Reserve, might fit into their product sets will have a new incentive to factor in when the FedNow discount program begins Jan. 1. Eligible FIs could receive a minimum of a $5,000 discount when enabling FedNow receive capabilities. …