Acquiring

Payments executives who may be hoping that a court ruling Tuesday will put an end to years of bitter wrangling over card-acceptance costs are likely to be disappointed, experts tell Digital Transactions News. “This does not end the argument. It just stifles it,” says Cliff Gray, principal at Gray Consulting …

For the better part of two decades, I’ve watched the payments industry evolve from a straightforward utility into a labyrinth of technical complexity. Merchant fee structures today are no longer just the cost of doing business. They are a volatile variable that can quietly erode a company’s bottom line. As …

Mastercard announced Agent Pay for Machines, a system for the initiation, orchestration, and settlement of payments conducted at high speed between AI agents. The network is collaborating with more than 30 companies on the initiative, including Adyen, Global Payments, Stripe, and BVNK, a stablecoin platform it has agreed to acquire for $1.8 …

A perpetual bane of payments, chargebacks create issues for merchants and their payment providers. Now, Findustry AI Inc. hopes its new artificial intelligence-enabled Chargeback Agent product will help ease the work of complying with card-brand dispute processes. Led by Jonathan Razi, who sold CardX, a surcharging-services provider, to Stax in 2021, …

The point-of-sale technology platform Valor PayTech announced early Friday an agreement with LANDI Global to represent LANDI’s line of point-of-sale devices in the U.S. market. The move is expected to lay the foundation for what Valor PayTech calls a “deeper product collaboration.” To start, Jericho, N.Y.-based Valor PayTech says it …

The FIFA World Cup, set for June 11 to July 19, is expected to drive increases in transactions but also in ticketing and payment fraud, warned payments processor Spreedly, citing a 36% rise in fake-ticket fraud in the months leading up to the event, as reported by Lloyds Bank. Brightwell has renamed …

Colorado’s SB 26-134, a bill that would have eliminated sales tax as part of the interchange-fee calculation, has been vetoed by Gov. Jared Polis. SB 26-134, similar to the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, would have taken effect Jan. 1, 2028, had Polis approved it. The contentious Illinois law, which …

Fiserv Inc. said its Small Business Index for May remained flat at 144 as small-business transactions dropped 2.4% year-over-year while average tickets rose 3.1%. The drop in transactions marked the seventh consecutive month of declining foot traffic. Fireblocks, a payments platform based on digital assets, launched Fireblocks Flow, stablecoin-acceptance technology aimed …

NMI announced early Tuesday it has acquired Fee Navigator, a provider of analysis for acquirers looking to price services for merchants. Terms were not disclosed. Schaumburg, Ill.-based NMI says the deal brings merchant-pricing capabilities supported by AI, adding to an arsenal of services the processor offers to independent sales organizations, independent …

MoneyGram has launched a U.S. dollar stablecoin called MGUSD, furthering its move into blockchain technology for payments. Soar Payments LLC, also known as SoarPay, announced the publication of “High Risk Merchant Accounts 101,” a guide to processing payments for high-risk and regulated businesses. Fifth Third Bank launched Report Phishing, a feature in …