Competitive Strategies

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 …

The payments platform Klarna AB may be a leading provider of buy now, pay later lending, but it is seeing increasing opportunity in other banking services. Early Tuesday, it launched savings accounts in the U.S. market. In its announcement, the company calls the move “a natural next step” following its …

Fraud-prevention specialist Feedzai announced Feedzai IQ Score, an AI-native scoring service to measure fraud risk for banks. Braid FI, which develops payments technologies for banks, announced an agreement with Koard, a specialist in in-person payments, to help financial institutions offer tap-to-pay capability on mobile phones. Xplor Pay, an embedded-payments technology provider, has …

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 …

Imagine waving a wand and making something appear in your hands. While it’s not magic, the Cash App Wand could make that happen. Announced Thursday, Cash App Wand is the first in a series of Cash App Tags, which are NFC-enabled, physical payment accessories that let consumers pay without having …

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 …

Visa Inc. is setting the stage for stablecoin settlement in a partnership with Brale, whose technology enables businesses to introduce and operate digital currencies backed by fiat money. The collaboration, announced early Thursday, will allow the card network to test settlement with Brale’s SBC, a stablecoin backed by the U.S. …