News

December, 2025

• 19 December

  The North Year That Was

  

  The definitive 2025 recap of everything payments. As December fades to January, it’s time to look back at the past year’s big events. A lot happened. Kendrick kicked it at the Superbowl, Katy Perry got shot into space, skinny jeans brought back a Y2K fit, and a scrappy little bot …
• 19 December

  Cannabis Payments Providers Applaud Reclassification of the Drug. Are Card Transactions Next?

  

  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 …
• 19 December

  Payroc Doubles Down on SMBs, Embedded Finance, and Larger Merchants

  

  Less than 90 days into closing its acquisition of BlueSnap Inc., Payroc WorldAccess LLC is pushing ahead with its dual strategy of courting small and mid-size businesses that may need a point-of-sale terminal and prospecting larger merchants with integrated payment needs. It sees the acquisition not as an end goal, …
• 19 December

  FedNow Reports Nearly 30,000 Daily Transactions and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/19/25

  

  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 …
• 18 December

  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 …
• 18 December

  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 …
• 18 December

  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 …
• 17 December

  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 …
• 17 December

  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 …
• 17 December

  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 …