Mobile Commerce

Having launched Mastercard Agent Suite in January, the card brand is expanding the service to make it easier for merchants to create and deploy AI-enabled shopping experiences. It also is launching Mastercard Agent Connect, a service that helps merchants, AI agents, platforms, and payment providers connect and transact via a …

Block Inc.’s Square point-of-sale unit said early Thursday it will support transactions at just under 100 locations belonging to Whit’s Frozen Custard, a 23-year-old restaurant chain based in Granville, Ohio. The move comes as the chain begins planning expansion to more locations. Whit’s, which operates stores in 11 states located …

Checkout.com launched direct acquiring in the United States under its Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank charter in Georgia. Mastercard Inc. announced Mastercard Wallet Pay, a set of technologies enabling interoperability and encouraging innovation among wallets for contactless and online payments. Some 4.3 billion persons globally now use digital wallets, a number expected …

Some 72% of U.S. consumers have used an AI assistant for shopping, but just 23% trust AI to manage payments, according to the Visa Trust Index for agentic commerce. The survey took place May 26-28 among a sample of 2,065 consumers, though the sample for the payment transaction question was 1,028 to …

Six Flags Entertainment Corp. is adding the Flex Pay buy now, pay later payment method from Upgrade Inc. to enable guests to make installment payments for season passes and other products. In related news, Visa Canada renewed its partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival, noting that 2027 will be …

The stablecoin-payments platform Circle Internet Group Inc. said early Tuesday it has agreed to acquire Tazapay, a business-to-business cross-border payments technology developer based in Singapore and serving financial institutions and payment-service providers. Tazapay processes more than $25 billion in payment volume annually, of which approximately 60% includes stablecoins. The parties …

AEON, a settlement platform for online payments, launched Agentic Checkout, which enables AI agents to shop, check out, and pay on e-commerce sites such as Shopify and Amazon. Buy now, pay later and payments specialist Klarna AB said its payment method is an option on StockX, a marketplace for apparel and cultural …

For decades, payments progress has been measured by how much friction disappears between initiation and transaction. Checks and cash gave way to credit cards. Credit cards gave way to digital wallets. And now, stablecoins are emerging as a new payments rail, with the potential to change how businesses move and …

U.S. small businesses registered a mixed performance in August, with dollar volume climbing but transactions dropping for the tenth straight month, according to the August Small Business Index released early Thursday by the payments processor Fiserv Inc. It all added up to a Small Business Index reading of 145, flat …