Credit Cards

More than 10 years after Visa Inc. wrote its rules permitting surcharging on its credit cards, questions remain among acquirers, especially those selling or considering surcharge programs for their merchants. Now, as more merchants mull surcharge or cash-discount programs to alleviate some of their card-acceptance costs, and with recent changes …

Amazon.com Inc. agreed to introduce buy now, pay later services through Affirm Inc. at checkout at the online Amazon Business store. Block Inc. said late Thursday the impact of a 15-hour outage on its Square platform in September was less than 1% of September-quarter profit. Block’s shares ended the day Thursday up 7.4%, …

Deluxe Corp. reported a slight decline in third-quarter revenue year-over-year, with $537.8 million compared to $555 million for the same period in 2022. Its payments unit, its second-largest division, recorded flat revenue of $169.5 million, with its checks business posting $180 millon, down slightly from $182.4. Known chiefly as a check …

The big Montreal-based payments processor Nuvei Corp. said early Wednesday it will process investments in private companies through KoreConX, a technology provider specializing in enabling such payments for individual investors. Interestingly, the arrangement includes the use of both card and account-to-account networks to route customers’ investments, with a $50 minimum, …

Observers of the payments industry who wonder how the Federal Reserve’s proposed rate reductions for debit card acceptance might be received by the nation’s biggest processors heard an unequivocal answer early Tuesday from at least one of them.  “Any time the cost of acceptance goes down, it’s a positive for …

The Western Union Co. announced customers will be able to send money via the company’s digital service directly to Visa and Mastercard cards through an integration with Paysend, a card-to-card payments platform. Lightspeed Commerce Inc. launched several new features including artificial intelligence-assisted menu creation, better insights into popular items, staff performance tools, …

Two point-of-sale companies have separately taken steps to boost their competitiveness, one with an acquisition and the other in a marketing expansion. Payments platform Nayax Ltd. says it will acquire Folsom, Calif.-based Retail Pro International in a $36.5-million deal. Expected to close in the fourth quarter, the deal will expand …

Last year, credit card issuers charged consumers more than $105 billion in interest and more than $25 billion in fees, $14.5 billion of which came from late fees, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s biennial credit card market report. Credit card holders paid about 20% of their average balance …

Mastercard Inc. posted strong third-quarter results of $6.5 billion in revenue, up 12% from $5.8 billion in the 2022 third quarter. The card giant’s net income of $3.2 billion increased 28% from $2.5 billion in the year-ago quarter. Mastercard cited cross-border payment volume growth of 21% in the quarter as one …

With potential regulation of credit card interchange looming and with the unwavering demand from merchants for lower card-acceptance costs, the possibility that interchange as it’s known today may dramatically change can’t be entirely dismissed—but don’t count on its demise. That was the conclusion at the Money 20/20 trade show this …