Acquiring

Payments processor Lightspeed Commerce Inc. announced a new AI-based tool aimed at helping merchants with inventory, product availability, and stock discrepancies.  Ticket Fairy, a digital platform that handles ticket sales and other functions for live events, announced its incorporation of AI in the launch of its new platform, Ticket Fairy 3.0. Founded …

It’s been 13 years since merchants were allowed to add surcharges to cover much of their credit card processing costs, yet confusion and complexity remain. Speakers at the Transact 2026 conference last week, sponsored by the Electronic Transactions Association, did their part to dispel much of this confusion. “Surcharging is a …

AI in retail applications is expected to generate $500 billion in incremental volume by 2030, according to the “2026 Global Unified Commerce Benchmark for Specialty Retail” report from Manhattan Associates. The report relies on research among more than 400 specialty retailers in global markets, including North America. Arguing that AI agents …

The cryptocurrency platform KuCoin introduced its Tomorrowland Limited Edition KuCard, a Visa card issued in partnership with the Tomorrowland music festival taking place March 21-28. Glia, an AI platform for banks, has integrated a loan-payment technology from MessagePay in an effort to integrate payments into digital interactions between community banks and their …

Square Inc., the point-of-sale technology platform from Block Inc., announced two new deals late Wednesday and early Thursday that underscore its POS ambitions both domestically and abroad. In Chicago, Square said a seafood seller called The Fish Guy has installed an e-commerce service supported by Square and eGrowcery, a Birmingham, …

Money-movement platform Thunes Financial Services Inc. announced Banco Cathay of Costa Rica has adopted its Pay-to-Wallet service for cross-border payments. Loyalzoo Ltd., a developer of customer-engagement software for merchants, announced an agreement under which it will integrate its customer-relationship technology with a new point-of-sale platform from Priority Technology Holdings Inc., the MX …

The Electronic Payments Coalition has opened another front in the battle over the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act with the launch of an ad campaign aimed at having the law overturned by the Illinois legislature. The campaign comes hard on the heels of efforts by organizations representing financial institutions in …

As creatures of habit, individuals often follow a routine throughout the day, and that extends into their local shopping activity. New data from Square, the point-of-sale arm of Block Inc., have found that regular customers generate six times more revenue for local businesses than more transient shoppers. Drawing on transactions …

Oracle Corp. unveiled new technologies for its Simphony Cloud Point of Sale technology, including an embedded AI assistant. Mastercard Inc. adopted a new foundation for its generative artificial intelligence service. An AI foundation is a neural network trained on massive unlabeled datasets, according to technologist Nvidia. Zerohash, a technology provider for payments …

Three organizations representing the banking community, as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency along with former acting members of the OCC, filed amicus briefs late Friday urging the court to overturn the decision to exempt Illinois merchants from paying interchange on the sales tax and gratuities …