Transaction Processing

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …