If there are lingering doubts about a big comeback for the big merchant processors, Fiserv Inc. may well have dispelled them early Tuesday with results showing 43% second-quarter growth in revenue year-over-year for the company’s merchant-acceptance unit. That performance comes on top of a near-doubling in payment volume for the …
Read More »Nacha Volume Increases 10% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/27/21
Nacha, the governing body for the automated clearing house system, said the ACH network processed 7.3 billion payments in the second quarter, a 10% increase from 6.6 billion payments in the same period a year ago. Particularly strong growth in business-to-business payment volume helped boost the result. Nacha said that …
Read More »Consumer Adoption of Contactless Payments Continues to Surge, Says Latest CardFlight Report
Nearly 18 months into the Covid-19 pandemic, consumer usage of contactless payments continues to grow, according to the most recent CardFlight Small Business Report. During the week ending July 18, contactless transactions increased 597.7% from the March 2020 baseline period. Contactless usage has been steadily increasing on a weekly basis …
Read More »How the Pandemic Has Forced Changes in the Way Acquirers Approach—And Sell to—Merchants
Ever since the Covid pandemic set in more than a year ago, the payments industry has been abuzz with talk about its various impacts on merchant acceptance. What hasn’t received as much attention is how the pandemic has affected merchant acquiring. It turns out processors and independent sales organizations have …
Read More »Consumer Spending Helps Put AmEx Within a Whisker of Pre-Pandemic Times
American Express Co. posted second-quarter numbers Friday indicating the card giant is very nearly back to its pre-pandemic performance and reflecting a steady recovery from the travel restrictions that hampered the company for most of 2020. Driving the improved results was steady improvement in the company’s vital travel-and-entertainment business and …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Could PayPal’s Latest Fee Boost Make It the Merchant Lobby’s Next Target?
The yin and yang of political, and ferociously commercial, PayPal was vividly on display with its announcement last month of a massive price hike. The e-commerce phenom attaches itself to an array of woke causes but remains a wonderfully hard-nosed commercial enterprise, keen to be fully compensated for the enormous value …
Read More »Visa Agrees to Lay out Nearly $1 Billion to Acquire Britain’s Cross-Border Specialist Currencycloud
Visa Inc. has been concentrating on building out its “network-of-networks” strategy for some time, and it’s latest move in that project came early Thursday with the news that it has agreed to acquire Currency Cloud Ltd., a London-based developer of application programming interfaces that can simplify cross-border payments. The deal values …
Read More »COMMENTARY: It’s Time for Peer-to-Peer Payment Apps And Digital Cash Services to Address Fraud
Since PayPal’s launch more than 20 years ago, the peer-to-peer and digital-cash service industry has seen exponential growth, and with it, exponential amounts of fraud. An estimated 70% of Americans use peer-to-peer and digital-cash services, and many turned to these products during the pandemic. However, in just the first four …
Read More »Discover’s Payment Volume Increased 22% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/22/21
Discover Financial Services reports its payment services volume of $78.4 billion for the second quarter of 2021 increased 22% from $64.5 billion in the same period a year ago. Its Pulse network dollar volume of $62.9 billion increased 18% from $52.9 billion year-over-year. Discover card sale volume of $45.6 billion increased …
Read More »Veem Adds Products for SMBs and other Digital Transasctions News briefs from 7/21/21
Payments provider Veem Inc. launched several new products for small businesses, including Veem Invoicing and Veem Collections.Cryptocurrency platform OKCoin USA Inc. has chosen FIS’s Worldpay unit to provide merchant acquiring and global exchange service in support of OKCoin’s ongoing global expansion.Visa Inc. said it will launch later this year an “evolved” brand identity featuring refreshed …
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