As 2025 nears its end, the Federal Reserve’s FedNow real-time payments service now has almost 1,600 participating financial institutions, including 70% of the country’s largest banks, the Fed reported. Transactions have reached nearly 30,000 daily, according to the Fed. FedNow launched in 2023. Domain-name registrar GoDaddy Inc. launched its ANS Marketplace and new AI …
Read More »Visa Predicts Agentic Commerce Will Be Mainstream in 2026; BigCommerce Adds Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite
Visa Inc. announced early Thursday hundreds of artificial intelligence-based and agent-initiated transactions have been completed in collaboration with partners, a milestone the card network says is a signal that agentic commerce is poised to become mainstream in 2026. By the start of the next year’s holiday shopping season, Visa predicts …
Read More »Eye on POS: Talus Adopts Ingenico SoftPOS Tech; Oracle Payments Expands to Canada
Count Talus among the latest payments companies to adopt softPOS technology, which enables merchants to accept contactless payments with no special hardware. In related news, Oracle Corp. said its Oracle Payments service is now available in Canada and issued several updates to the service. Dallas-based Talus says its incorporation of …
Read More »Isaacman Finally Gets NASA OK and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/18/25
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 …
Read More »Holiday Shoppers Continue to Outpace 2024 Spending Levels, With Fewer Returns
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 …
Read More »Akamai and Visa Team on Agentic Commerce Controls
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 …
Read More »System Developer Enables ACH and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/17/25
System Solutions LLC says an update to its integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central cloud ERP software enables merchants to process automated clearing house transactions within 365 Central. Sardine AI Corp., a risk-management firm, said it will offer real-time transaction monitoring, fraud interdiction, and other services through a partnership with …
Read More »Visa Moves to Support Stablecoins for U.S. Settlement
Visa Inc. announced early Tuesday it is supporting stablecoins as a settlement option for issuer and acquirer banks in the United States, a major move in payment card finance and one observers see as an inevitable next step for the industry, though one that could come with complications. The use …
Read More »Merchant Groups Voice Their Objections to the Latest Visa-Mastercard Swipe Fee Settlement Offer
Merchant groups late Friday filed written complaints regarding the latest settlement offer in their two-decades old lawsuit against Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. challenging card swipe fees. The settlement offer, which follows a rejected offer in 2024, was made in November. Merchant groups filing complaints were The National Association of …
Read More »Crypto Kingpins Circle And Ripple Are Approved for National Trust Banks
Two major players in stablecoins, Circle Internet Financial Inc. and Ripple Labs Inc., received conditional approval Friday from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish national trust banks. Both companies coveted the approvals as key to establishing confidence in stablecoins among consumers and businesses as they …
Read More »