E-Commerce

Gift cards are becoming a popular employee incentive, Fiserv Inc.’s “Q4 2023 Gift Card Survey” finds. Some 80% of respondents say they would prefer a gift card as a reward from their employer, while 9% say they would prefer an event or outing, and 11% would prefer some other type …

Wellfit Technologies Inc. said it will provide payment processing, patient financing, and other services under a new agreement with Patterson Dental’s network of clinics. RentSpree, a management platform for landlords, announced it has reached 2 million users, doubling its user count in less than two years. The service enables rent payments …

The payments-technology provider Dwolla Inc. has integrated its Dwolla Connect platform for account-to-account payments in open finance. The integration will enable Dwolla Connect clients to transfer open-finance data to the Dwolla platform, the company says. As a result, financial institutions and third-party open-banking providers, such as Plaid Inc. and MX …

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 …

Payments processor Elavon announced its global acquiring multi-currency conversion services will support transactions for the airline Virgin Atlantic. Elavon, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, says it serves more than 100 airlines among its client base. Canadian banking giant BMO said it will begin offering Visa Inc.’s Installments payments service next year. Visa launched Installments …

Lyric.ai, a provider of artificial intelligence-based payment accuracy solutions for healthcare payers, has partnered with Codoxo, an AI-based cost-containment platform provider, to improve payment accuracy processes for health-plan payers. Lyric will offer Codoxo’s ClaimPilot, Audit Scope, Payment Scope, Provider Scope, and Fraud Scope applications to its customers via LyricIQ, its …

Like a thunderclap, on Oct. 25 the stock price of continental Europe’s biggest payment processor, Worldline, plummeted 59%. It’s down a whopping 88% from its high in April 2021. Macroeconomic conditions are to blame, but so are Worldline-specific factors. The reign of easy money is over. Easy money inflates valuations. …

European transaction processors are getting hammered by slowing economies and increased regulatory scrutiny. Shares in the big French processor Worldline slid 59% on Wednesday, followed by a feeble recovery Thursday. AppTech Payments Corp. announced it has closed on its acquisition of Alliance Partners LLC. The deal brings to AppTech FinZeo, Alliance’s money-movement software …

The Federal Reserve Board’s proposal Wednesday to make a 31% reduction in the main component of its debit card interchange ceiling for large issuers touches on a longstanding sore point among merchants and has already sparked a spirited debate in the payments industry. Merchant groups, long riled by debit card …

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 …