Transaction Processing

Despite inflation hitting a 40-year high, consumer spending during the back-to-school season is projected to increase 7.5%, excluding automotive sales, from 2021 levels, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online retail sales across all forms of payment, not adjusted for inflation.  Department stores are expected to be …

The steep drop in the value of Bitcoin made itself felt Tuesday at Coinbase when the crypto exchange’s boss announced an 18% cut in its workforce. The 10-year-old company had more than 4,900 employees, according to its Web site. That’s about 880 employees affected by the layoff, though some reports …

Payments provider Sionic announced a service that allows consumers to pay merchants at the point of sale via real-time transfers from the consumer’s bank account to the merchant’s bank account. The service includes incentives merchants can use to induce consumers to use the service in preference to rewards credit cards.XTM Inc. announced it …

Signs continue to mount that peer-to-peer payments are being adopted by businesses, and in turn could be encroaching on card payments at the point-of-sale.  A recent survey of 530 small businesses conducted by The Strawhecker Group and titled “P2P Payment: A Disruption To Plastic?” reveals that 82% of small businesses …

In a diversification move, business-to-business payments provider Fleetcor Technologies Inc. reported Thursday it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Global Reach Group, a London-based cross-border payments provider. Terms of the deal were not announced, and a Fleetcor spokesperson could not be reached for comment Friday. Atlanta-based Fleetcor expects the …

Circle Internet Financial Ltd. said early Friday it has agreed to acquire Cybavo, a Taiwan-based developer of tools for digital-asset custody and blockchain development. The Boston-based company, perhaps best known as the developer of USD Coin, a stablecoin linked to the U.S. dollar, said the acquisition will provide the technical …

Mastercard Inc. said it is working with seven companies to enable its branded payment cards to be used for making non-fungible token purchases. NFTs are digital goods.Sardine, a provider of anti-fraud and compliance technology to fintechs, said it will work with cryptocurrency-technology provider Zero Hash to enable instant settlement on the …

When Apple Inc. on Monday announced Apple Pay Later, its buy now, pay later program, the computing giant added an unexpected twist. The new program will not rely for financing on Goldman Sachs, Apple’s long-time partner for Apple Pay. Rather, Apple is setting up its own unit, to be called …

With consumers increasingly turning to fintechs to round out their financial services and get access to those services on their terms, the need to partner with providers of open banking platforms is growing rapidly. To facilitate such partnerships, open-banking network MX Technologies Inc. late Wednesday announced the formalization of its …

Online spending in May totaled $78.8 billion, more than $1 billion above April, said Adobe Inc. in its Adobe Digital Price Index.E-commerce platform WooCommerce said it has enhanced its card reader to add the ability for merchants to enter an order in the WooCommerce mobile app and automatically synchronize inventory between in-person and …