The Department of Finance Canada on Thursday issued its latest merchant-friendly announcement regarding payment cards, this one disclosing agreements with Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. for an average 10-basis-point reduction in credit card interchange for small and mid-size businesses to take effect in 2020. The department also said American Express …
Read More »CPI Card Group’s Results Improve Amid Double-Digit Prepaid Card Revenue Growth
Payment-card maker CPI Card Group said Thursday that new sales from an existing customer boosted its U.S. prepaid debit card revenue 26% in the second quarter. Littleton, Colo.-based CPI also reported that sold its United Kingdom business to private-investment firm SEA Equity for $4.5 million. With revenue of $15.4 million …
Read More »Bitcoin Cash One Year Later: Cheaper Than Bitcoin, But Still Number 4 on the Hit Parade
One year after the hard fork that created it, Bitcoin Cash is in some ways mimicking the digital currency it was spawned from. Bitcoin Cash’s price at $693 Monday morning has slid by about $1,000 in the past three months, according to CoinMarketCap.com. And it’s well under the $4,091 peak …
Read More »Cash Favoritism Still Benefits Cardtronics, Especially in the Wake of Payment-Network Failures
Cardtronics plc may have been one of the few companies to benefit from Visa Inc.’s June 1 outage in Europe. It notched a record high volume in the United Kingdom, Edward H. West, Cardtronics chief executive and director, told analysts during a conference call Thursday to discuss the ATM deployer’s …
Read More »Kroger’s Foods Co Lobs a Grenade at Visa in the Ongoing Guerrilla War Over Card-Acceptance Costs
Citing acceptance costs, Foods Co, a California unit of leading supermarket chain The Kroger Co., says it will stop accepting Visa credit cards Aug. 14 at 26 stores. “Foods Co is discontinuing the acceptance of Visa credit cards to save on the high costs associated with the credit card company’s …
Read More »ISOs Urged To Begin Thinking Beyond Pure Profit
The independent sales organization business is one that has spawned multimillion-dollar fortunes for numerous entrepreneurs. But perhaps it’s time for the industry to begin thinking beyond pure profit, merchant-acquiring executives suggested Thursday. The executives participated in a panel dubbed “Payments Doing Good” at the MidWest Acquirers Association annual conference in …
Read More »More Merchants, Not So Much Spending: A Mixed Report on Insider Sentiment on Crypto
When it comes to the potential for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be a real-world payment method, users, investors, and blockchain executives have a somewhat mixed view on the matter. Asked whether they think more merchants will start accepting crypto this year, 49% agree and 23% strongly agree that they …
Read More »Many Consumers Shun P2P Payments To Avoid Fees, Though Few Services Charge Them
The impending demise of Snap Inc.’s Snapcash service comes at a time when peer-to-peer payment services are growing rapidly, but many consumers still remain hesitant to use them. Some of these consumers are confused about pricing, new findings from Fiserv Inc. suggest. Fiserv, a Brookfield, Wis.-based financial-institution processor, on Monday …
Read More »Cryptocurrency ‘Has Legs,” Payroc Says, So It’s Moving Toward a Merchant Acceptance Rollout Later This Year
Issues like price volatility, pokey transaction times, and sheer reputational risk have left many processors and independent sales organizations on the sidelines when it comes to cryptocurrency acceptance. Many, but not all. The latest entrant, and the largest so far, in this nascent market is Payroc LLC, which later this …
Read More »Blockchain Startup MakeCents Tests a Payments Platform It Says Bypasses Networks
With hopes of providing merchants with a lower-cost network to make and accept electronic payments, startup MakeCents announced Friday a test of its blockchain-based platform. New York City-based MakeCents says its decentralized platform is designed to “disrupt the $420 trillion global payments infrastructure by leveraging its blockchain technology to connect …
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