Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
December, 2025
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23 December
Holiday Gift Cards Bloom, Especially Among Younger Consumers
Predictions that gift cards would be a popular choice this holiday shopping season may bear out. At least one gift card provider, Tillo Inc., finds that across Black Friday to Cyber Monday, Nov. 28-Dec.1, its total sales were up 41% over the similar period in 2024. Tillo, based in the …
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23 December
Holiday Retail Shopping up 3.9% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/23/25
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 …
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22 December
Fiserv Adopts Agentic Commerce Protocols From Visa and Mastercard
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 …
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22 December
How Processors Are Turning to Stablecoins for Internal and Seller Funding
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 …
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22 December
Fed Payment Account Comment Opens and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/22/25
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 …
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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 …
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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, …
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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 …
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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 …
