Digital Currency Update

Blockchain.com, a crypto wallet and financial services company, will partner with Stripe to facilitate payments, fight fraud and improve revenue management. Blockchain.com has already used Stripe to facilitate crypto purchases using card payments, and the company expects to add the ability to make crypto purchases using Apple Pay and Google Pay. The company also announced […]

Zeta and Mastercard are Card-Issuing Partners

Mastercard has announced a five-year global sales and marketing partnership with cloud-native software provider Zeta to promote that company’s API-based card account management platform. Zeta built its technology from scratch. Mastercard says the robustness and sophistication is unrivalled. Sodexo, which provides prepaid products worldwide, uses Zeta’s card-management system in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Spain and […]

Global Brand Cards —Midyear 2021

From January 1 to June 30, 2021, Visa, UnionPay, Mastercard, JCB, Diners Club/Discover and American Express brand credit, debit and prepaid cards collectively generated 259.47 billion purchase transactions for goods and services worldwide. This was up 31.9% from the same period in 2020. UnionPay restated downward its midyear 2020 figures from those that we published […]

UnionPay International and Fiserv are Global Partners

The UnionPay International (UPI) subsidiary of China UnionPay plans to grow its business outside of China through a cardholder and merchant processing partnership with Fiserv. The companies signed a contract in October 2021. The partnership will be ready to serve new financial institution and multinational merchant customers later this year. Fiserv is the largest issuer […]

Digital Currency Update

The Governor of Colorado said that the state will become the first in the U.S. to accept cryptocurrency for payment of state taxes and fees. Local legislators in Arizona and Wyoming drafted similar proposals. Sling, the Dish-owned streaming service, partnered with BitPay to accept cryptocurrency payments including Bitcoin, Ethereum and DogeCoin for its monthly subscription […]

Worldline to Sell POS Terminal Business

The Terminals, Solutions & Services (TSS) business line of merchant acquirer Worldline will be sold to private equity funds manager Apollo, an alternative asset manager, for $1.92 billion (€1.70 billion) in cash up front if, as expected, the transaction closes in the second half of this year. The value of the deal could increase by […]

Samsung’s All-in-One Chip for Biometric Cards

Later this year, Samsung Semiconductors will offer card manufacturers a single chip (S3B512C) that integrates the three functions needed to create biometric authentication cards—fingerprint sensor, secure element (SE) and secure processor. Currently, biometric payment cards require two and sometimes three chips to deliver the added cardholder authentication security. The SE in S3B512C is certified for […]

American Express Card Results Worldwide — 2021

All American Express cards worldwide generated total volume (which Amex calls network volume) of $1.284 trillion in 2021, up 22.6% from 2020. Total volume is a combination of purchase volume and cash advances initiated by cards issued directly by American Express (which Amex calls billed business) and from cards issued by its Global Network Services […]

Digital Currency Update

Visa will partner with ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company, to connect central bank digital currency (CBDC) networks into existing payment rails. Visa’s CBDC Payments Module is designed to allow financial institutions to issue digital wallets or CBDC-linked cards to consumers. The pilot testing phase of development begins this year. Binance, a crypto trading platform, announced […]

M&A Activity in Merchant Processing and Acquiring—2021

There were 82 mergers and acquisitions in the merchant processing and acquiring sector of the payment card industry in 2021. Those transactions occurred in 31 countries. The monetary values of only 17 of the 82 deals were made public. Among those 17, the largest involved First American Payment Systems in the U.S. The value of […]