Issuing/Originating

U.S. retail sales for March decreased 8.7% from February, according to figures released by the Census Bureau. One bright spot was a 28% increase in sales at food and beverage stores from March 2019. Clothing and clothing accessories store sales were down 50.7%.Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said it is supporting …

JPMorgan Chase & Co., parent company of the nation’s biggest bank-owned merchant acquirer, managed to pull off a 5% increase in processing volume in the first quarter despite the restrictions on economic activity that took force in many states in the second half of March to control the Covid-19 pandemic. …

EBay Inc. named former Walmart Inc. executive Jamie Iannone chief executive officer, effective April 27. Iannone, who will succeed interim CEO Scott Schenkel, most recently served as chief operating officer of Walmart eCommerce and was at one time chief executive of SamsClub.com. EBay indicated earlier this year it has plans to …

More consumers appear to be keeping their credit cards in their wallets when they shop. Credit union service organization PSCU says its data show that overall credit card spend among consumers who use credit and debit cards issued by credit unions working with PSCU is down 29.3% for the week …

Fraud prevention firm Kount Inc. released a weekly tracker of e-commerce purchase trends. In mid-March it showed that U.S. online sales of home office furniture and electronics increased 54%.Installment payments provider Klarna Bank AB said data from consumer use of its shopping app shows that e-commerce purchases are shifting to health and beauty and …

The Covid-19 crisis is making cobranded travel credit cards less valuable.  Demand for travel has taken a nosedive amid flight restrictions to international destinations, mandatory stay-at-home orders, and rising alarm over the coronavirus pandemic. Airlines have had to cancel flights and ground thousands of aircraft. Airline lounges and hotels have …

Like other payment networks, the automated clearing house was going great guns until mid-March, but thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic it’s now in the midst of a slowdown. ACH governing body Nacha reported Thursday that total volume rose 7.1% year-over-year in the first quarter to 6.4 billion transactions, up by …

Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. have postponed their planned U.S. interchange revisions until July, but when these changes do take effect the net impact on merchants will be deep, according to an analysis released by CMSPi, an Atlanta-based global merchant payments consultancy. Indeed, the new pricing planned by the two …

Losses from identity fraud grew 13% in 2019 to $16.9 billion even though instances of ID fraud fell nearly 10%, according to the newly released 2020 Identity Fraud Report from Javelin Strategy & Research. The study also found that person-to-person payments fraud increased 733% from 2016 to 2019. Based on …

Contactless payments already capture a big share of point-of-sale purchases in Canada, and that share is sure to grow with recent announcements by Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. that they are raising their contactless transaction limits to C$250 to limit the handling of cards that could spread the coronavirus, according …