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The Fed’s Biennial Debit Report Sparks Merchants’ Ire
Fiserv Adopts Agentic Commerce Protocols From Visa and Mastercard
Fiserv Inc. looked to position itself at the forefront of agentic commerce early Monday with the adoption of protocols from Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. Fiserv will deploy Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol across its payments system to authenticate, retrieve, accept, and process agentic transactions. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol identifies trusted …
Read More »Cannabis Payments Providers Applaud Reclassification of the Drug. Are Card Transactions Next?
POSaBIT Systems Corp., a payments processor specializing in cannabis merchants, and Dutchie, a software provider to more than over 6,500 cannabis businesses, late Thursday lauded the Trump administration’s decision to reclassify cannabis to a Schedule III drug as a move that could finally open the door for cannabis merchants to …
Read More »Visa Predicts Agentic Commerce Will Be Mainstream in 2026; BigCommerce Adds Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite
Visa Inc. announced early Thursday hundreds of artificial intelligence-based and agent-initiated transactions have been completed in collaboration with partners, a milestone the card network says is a signal that agentic commerce is poised to become mainstream in 2026. By the start of the next year’s holiday shopping season, Visa predicts …
Read More »Holiday Shoppers Continue to Outpace 2024 Spending Levels, With Fewer Returns
Online shoppers are spending more this holiday shopping season compared to a year ago, while returning fewer items, according to Adobe Analytics. Holiday shoppers spent $187.3 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 12, up 6.1% from the same period a year ago. Adobe is projecting online sales for the entire …
Read More »Merchant Groups Voice Their Objections to the Latest Visa-Mastercard Swipe Fee Settlement Offer
Merchant groups late Friday filed written complaints regarding the latest settlement offer in their two-decades old lawsuit against Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. challenging card swipe fees. The settlement offer, which follows a rejected offer in 2024, was made in November. Merchant groups filing complaints were The National Association of …
Read More »Stripe Launches Agentic Commerce Suite With Brands in Tow
Stripe Inc. continues its push to build an agentic commerce infrastructure late Thursday with the launch of its Agentic Commerce Suite. The new solution helps merchants use artificial intelligence-based agents to sell across multiple AI shopping platforms via a single integration to Stripe. In addition, Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite supports …
Read More »Global Payments Details the Promise And Perils of Agentic Commerce
The promise and potential perils of agentic commerce as a digital technology are among the trends highlighted in Global Payments Inc.’s 2026 Commerce and Payments Trends Report. Beginning as a form of customer service based on its natural-language capabilities, artificial intelligence has begun to take off through the use of …
Read More »SoundHound Launches an In-Vehicle Reservation System; SpotOn Releases a Report on Restaurant Profitability
SoundHound AI Inc., a provider of artificial intelligence-based voice technology apps, unfolded its voice commerce strategy in the hotly competitive restaurant market with the introduction of an in-vehicle, artificial intelligence-based reservations agent. The reservation system, developed with restaurant-reservation platform OpenTable Inc., connects drivers to a network of more than 60,000 …
Read More »Swipe Fees Are a Drain on Consumers’ Wallets, a Merchant Group Says
Fees paid by merchants to accept credit card and debit cards will dampen consumer spending power this holiday shopping season as sellers look for ways to offset the cost, says the Merchants Payment Coalition. Swipe fees are projected to cost merchants at least $19.9 billion this holiday shopping season, up …
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