Looking to dispel criticism that buy now, pay later loans are predatory-lending products, BNPL provider Klarna AB has launched Wikipink, a Web page that details information about its BNPL business, such as repayment rates, late fee rates, and consumer demographics. “By publishing our facts and figures with full transparency, including …
Read More »NAB’s Visa Integration and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 4/4/24
Payments provider North American Bancard LLC said it has integrated its merchant processing platform with Visa Inc.’s Visa Acceptance Platform, allowing it to offer merchants access to Visa properties such as Cybersource, a fraud-detection platform. The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC said first-quarter volume on its RTP real-time payments network set a quarterly …
Read More »Mastercard Plans a Network Fee Hike for Later This Month. Merchants Aren’t Happy
Mastercard merchants will see a network fee increase later this month when Mastercard increases its Acquirer Brand Volume Fee from 0.13% to 0.14%, effective April 15. The increase comes on the heels of last week’s settlement between Visa and Mastercard, on one hand, and merchants, on the other, in their …
Read More »With a Lower Cost and a No-Chargebacks Promise for Merchants, Pay by Bank Emerges as a Fiserv Priority
Pay by bank is not a new electronic-payments concept—consumers have been paying utility bills with their bank accounts for years—but the promise of lower fees and reduced merchant headaches is energizing the service, and work is at hand developing new use cases. Witness Radial Inc., an e-commerce platform adopting Link …
Read More »PayPal, Amazon, Apple, And Walmart Are Among the Big Winners in the Interchange Deal
The transaction-cost savings and tender steering provided for in the big interchange settlement reached earlier this week will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually for major merchants and the big mobile-wallet providers, according to estimates provided to Digital Transactions News by San Carlos, Calif.-based payments researcher Crone Consulting. …
Read More »COMMENTARY: The Great Hope Rising From the Quiet Revolution Against Card Payments
In the heart of America’s bustling commerce, a subtle yet powerful revolution is unfolding, driven by small merchants. The strategies of offering discounts for cash payments and imposing surcharges for card transactions are at the forefront of this change. These practices, rapidly gaining traction across communities, directly challenge the entrenched …
Read More »Discover CEO Leaving and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 3/28/24
Michael Rhodes has resigned as chief executive and president of Discover Financial Services Inc., effective April 1. Rhodes was “not expected to have a long-term role at the combined company after completion of the Company’s merger with Capital One Financial Corporation,” Discover said in a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and …
Read More »Buying Groups Might—or Might Not—Give Merchants More Negotiating Power with the Card Networks
Card-acceptance costs and network rules weren’t the only subjects covered by the sweeping settlement revealed Tuesday involving Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and lawyers for the merchants that sued them. The pending agreement, which needs approval from a federal judge, allows for the creation of so-called merchant buying groups that would …
Read More »Visa And Mastercard Agree to Merchant Rate Cuts and Acceptance Changes in a Major Settlement
Merchant lawsuits challenging credit card interchange and payment card network rules that began nearly two decades ago may finally be heading for resolution under a landmark settlement announced Tuesday by Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., and lawyers for the merchants. Merchant lawyers in the massive case estimate the settlement could save …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Cap One’s Bid for Discover Will Lift Many Boats
Capital One’s proposed $35.3-billion acquisition of Discover will be a thunderclap for the debit-card, retail-banking, and payment-network markets. The Discover network has long been the number-five U.S. retail-payment network, after Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and PayPal. Since its acquisition of Diners Club from Citi in 2008, Discover has struggled as …
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