Wednesday , February 4, 2026

Transaction Processing

Brexit Vote Bashes U.S. Payments Companies; Long-Term Effects Unclear

Shares of U.S. payments companies fell even farther than the general market Friday as the world absorbed the news from Thursday’s stunning “Brexit” vote in the United Kingdom in which British voters signaled they want to leave the European Union. Whether today’s market carnage is a sign of future long-term …

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Banks Cash in on Visa Europe Deal and other Digital Transactions News briefs

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched Walmart Pay in 11 states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, and Indiana. • Citing volatile exchange rates for the British pound, some money-transfer companies are temporarily suspending pound transfers until after results of today’s “Brexit” vote on …

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COMMENTARY: Helping Banks Deliver a U.S. Real-Time Payments Scheme

Real-time payments have existed in various models for a long time. In fact, they’re probably most familiar to consumers as card payments, something that has been embedded in consumer culture for decades. However, in the United States, the development of real-time payments has lagged behind some areas of the world, a …

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MasterCard Joins Visa in Easing EMV Testing And Chargebacks for Merchants

MasterCard Inc. on Monday is releasing a new policy aimed at speeding the testing and certification of EMV chip card terminals at U.S. merchant locations. The policy change, which the Purchase, N.Y.-based network says will cut test time to a few hours from as much as a couple of weeks, …

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Facing a Rocky EMV Transition, Visa Touts Chargeback And Certification Breaks

Even the most fervent advocate of EMV would have to admit the U.S conversion to chip cards has been a rocky one, especially for merchants. On Thursday, Visa Inc. announced a four-part plan it clearly hopes will remedy at least some of the more acute headaches, including certification backlogs and …

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Citing ‘Unacceptably High’ Fees, Wal-Mart To Stop Accepting Visa Cards in Canada

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s 400-store Canadian unit announced Saturday that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores beginning with phased discontinuance starting July 18. “Following an evaluation of credit card transaction fees in Canada and the rest of the world, we have concluded the fees applied to …

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Did a May Meeting With Durbin Staffers Prompt Visa to Back off on Its New Fee?

The payments industry may never know for sure what prompted Visa Inc. to back off on a potentially lucrative new fee aimed at issuers planning to defect to other networks. But a clue to the decision emerged Wednesday when U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s office issued a statement celebrating the move …

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After Tussling With Visa, Durbin Challenges MasterCard Over an Issuer Fee

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin on Thursday asked MasterCard Inc. to explain an obscure fee with a clunky name that the senator believes penalizes MasterCard issuers when merchants exercise their transaction-routing rights under the Durbin Amendment with MasterCard debit card purchases. But MasterCard says issuers benefit whenever its cards are used, …

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Following Its Decision to Put off a Rollout, MCX to Shut Down Its CurrentC Pilot on June 28

When the Merchant Customer Exchange LLC announced last month it is postponing a rollout of its CurrentC pilot in Columbus, Ohio, observers suspected the news did not bode well for the merchant-controlled mobile wallet. On Monday, those suspicions were confirmed as MCX told CurrentC account holders in an email that …

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As the mPOS Revolution Spreads to More Merchants, Players Must Build Scale Fast

The mobile point-of-sale revolution started in North America with smart-phone readers from startups like Square Inc. and established software houses like Intuit Inc., but it’s now a global phenomenon with broad implications for entrenched players and newcomers alike, according to research released Monday. Indeed, mobile POS gear—chiefly phones or tablets …

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Digital Transactions