Mobile Commerce

Holiday spending in Canada over the seven-week period starting Nov. 1 rose 4.4% compared to the same period last year, according to a report from Visa Consulting & Analytics. Some 88% of the spending occurred in-store, with the remainder spent online. Payments provider Klarna AB said U.S. spending on its platform on entertainment, …

In-store and online retail sales in the U.S. market grew 3.9% from Nov. 1 through Dec. 21 compared to last year, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse report, which excludes automotive sales. The result, which is not adjusted for inflation, represents all payment types… …while preliminary data in a separate report from Visa Inc. indicate …

Fiserv Inc. looked to position itself at the forefront of agentic commerce early Monday with the adoption of protocols from Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc.  Fiserv will deploy Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol across its payments system to authenticate, retrieve, accept, and process agentic transactions. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol identifies trusted …

The speed and apparent lower cost of stablecoins—coupled with the digital currency’s rising prominence as a payments method—has captured the imagination of payments companies. Now some are leveraging the coins for both internal and merchant funding. Shift4 Payments Inc. said early Monday it has launched a facility for stablecoin settlement …

The Federal Reserve opened a 45-day public comment period on a proposal that would enable eligible financial institutions to clear and settle payments within the Fed’s payment services. Dubbed payment account, this account would be distinct from a master account, the Fed said, which is what financial institutions currently must use for …

POSaBIT Systems Corp., a payments processor specializing in cannabis merchants, and Dutchie, a software provider to more than over 6,500 cannabis businesses, late Thursday lauded the Trump administration’s decision to reclassify cannabis to a Schedule III drug as a move that could finally open the door for cannabis merchants to …

Former Shift4 Payments Inc. chief executive Jared Isaacman was approved by a U.S. Senate vote of 67-30 to take over as administrator at NASA, the top position at the U.S. space agency. President Trump renominated Isaacman for the job in November after quashing his original nomination in May. Payments platform PSQ Holdings Inc. said …

Online shoppers are spending more this holiday shopping season compared to a year ago, while returning fewer items, according to Adobe Analytics. Holiday shoppers spent $187.3 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 12, up 6.1% from the same period a year ago. Adobe is projecting online sales for the entire …

With at least one forecast, from Morgan Stanley, predicting agentic commerce could capture from 10% to 20% of U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030, payments companies are quickly prepping. The latest is the pairing of Visa Inc. and Akamai Technologies Inc., a cybersecurity and cloud-computing company. The Visa and Akamai collaboration …