Industry News

RAKUTEN, a shopping platform that offers cash back on purchases from top consumer brands, has launched the Rakuten American Express card exclusively for Rakuten members in the US. The no-annual-fee card is powered by Imprint, a fintech company that designs, launches and manages co-branded credit card programs. First Electronic Bank is the card issuer. The card offers an extra 4% cash back on top of what shoppers already earn while shopping on Rakuten’s platform, and an extra 5% cash back on top of the 5% members earn when dining at Rakuten partner restaurants. Cardholders also have access to offers on the Amex merchant network.

SAMSUNG WALLET and SPLITIT have integrated. Consumers with Samsung Wallets in Galaxy smartphones can access BNPL credit through Splitit at merchants in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Rollout to the other US states will follow. Payments are billed to Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards in Samsung Wallets. Credit cards issued by J.P. Morgan Chase cannot participate.

TECH MAHINDRA will offer its technology consulting expertise in real-time payments, data reconciliation and enterprise resource planning through the J.P. Morgan Payments Consultant Implementation Program (PICP) and has been added to the J.P. Morgan Payments Partner Network, an ecosystem of 100+ partners covering all industries and use cases within payments .

VERIFONE has partnered with PagBrasil to provide US merchants with the ability to offer Brazilian tourists the opportunity to make in-store payments using their home country’s International Pix instant payment method. PagBrasil built International Pix, which includes real-time currency conversion. Tourists do not need cards to initiate Pix payments. Instead, they scan a QR code at the point of sale and authenticate the transaction using their banking app or ewallet. Verifone facilitates the transactions in its API-based payment method gateway.

PAYPAL has launched an AI-powered dynamic alert system that detects scams tied to payments initiated within the noncommercial PayPal and Venmo Friends money transfer service. The system, which is available in all global markets, triggers pop-up alerts that reflect the risk level of transfers its customers are making and is aimed in particular at combatting scams. It sends progressively stricter alerts as its confidence that a scam exists grows, adding more friction into the process of completing a money transfer. The alerts are part of the process of training AI models to more quickly detect a potential new scam scenario.

SOCURE, a fraud prevention and end-to-end identity management platform provider, has launched Workforce Verification to stop job candidates who leverage fabricated identities from gaining access to corporate systems and data. Coverage is available in more than 160 countries. The product has built-in regulatory compliance and integrates with HR platforms, job boards, payroll systems and applicant tracking systems via a hosted interface.

FISERV has expanded its Clover point-of-sale system to include support for small and midsized healthcare providers. Clover PracticePay is an all-in-one payment platform developed in partnership with Rectangle Health and uses that company’s Practice Management Bridge technology. It is designed to comply with all HIPAA and PCI requirements. Features include financing options, recurring billing, text to pay, QR codes and online portals, all available via the Clover portal.

AMERICAN AIRLINES and MASTERCARD have extended their exclusive co-brand credit card partnership, a relationship that is nearly 40 years old. The companies will also leverage the Mastercard payment infrastructure to deliver all members of the airlines’ AAdvantage reward program personalized offers and new ways to redeem miles earned for Mastercard Priceless experiences.

INGENICO’S Axium SX5000 devices are the first self-service POS terminals to receive PCI PTSv7 certification. The PCI PTSv7 standard focuses on safeguarding against physical tampering and malware, covers payment security for biometric sensors and incorporates accessibility features for PIN entry. The certification is valid through April 2035.

PUBLICSQUARE has integrated Apple Pay and Google Pay with its PSQ payment platform. The company, which built its merchant portfolio on outdoor recreation and gun dealer clients, is expanding its customer base into the travel industry. PublicSquare’s financial technology segment includes Credova, a consumer financing and payments company.

PHOTONPAY, a Hong Kong-based provider of global accounts, credit cards, online payments, payouts and other payment services, has become a Mastercard issuer. A new commercial Mastercard credit card links directly to PhotonPay’s multicurrency account system. All transactions are synced in real time with the PhotonPay reconciliation engine.

PAYFINIA, which offers community financial institutions its Instant Payment Xchange platform for real-time money movement, will provide its customers access to the Paze digital wallet ecommerce checkout service from
Early Warning Services. The digital wallet service from Payfinia will provide a computing layer to protect users’ data supplied by financial institutions. Star One CU is the first Payfinia customer
to offer Paze to its members.

STMICROELECTRONICS has launched STPay-Topaz-2, a system on a chip for contactless payment cards. Card manufacturers can consolidate the largest set of payment apps on a single part number. An autotuning capability provides consistent performance across terminals to ensure cardholders receive a successful tap. Samples are available and production is already underway.

PREZZEE’S global egift card marketplace will be available to Lyft ride-hailing drivers. Prepaid cards from national brands will be provided as mobile-friendly rewards for Lyft drivers. The rewards will be integrated with Lyft’s existing loyalty and reward program. Prezzee has sold 140 million prepaid cards globally.

Mattilda, a Mexico-based fintech that provides an automated school fee collection service for 180,000 students in private schools across Latin America, will become a payment facilitator by leveraging the payment orchestration platform of Gr4vy. The company has created Mattilda Pay as white-label service it can use to customize payment strategies for each school it adds.

PAYJUNCTION, which processes more than $12 billion in card payments annually, has integrated with Twillo’s customer engagement platform. Merchants will be able to deploy Twillo interactive voice response technology to securely process payments over the phone, eliminating manual processing.

VENMO, a money movement app owned by PayPal, is marketing a co-branded Mastercard debit card to students at
Big 12 Conference universities. Card designs will be customized for each school. The Venmo Debit Mastercard is issued by The Bancorp Bank.

FNBO (First National Bank of Omaha) has launched a new Wawa Mastercard credit that offers savings and perks to the retailer's customers based on spending for fuel and in-store purchases. New cardholders will receive discounts of 50 cents per gallon of gas as a statement credit for the first 30 days. They get 3X points for in-store spending.

Kort Payments and Tilled have formed a partnership. Tilled offers PayFac as a Service technology. Kort is an omnichannel payment processor that also handles compliance and risk management. The companies will pursue business opportunities with independent software vendors and SaaS platforms in the US and Canada. Kort recently purchased the direct marketing business of Paysafe.

XPLOR PAY is the new name for Clearent by Xplor. The company provides a payfac-as-a-service (PaaS) platform for software vendors, SaaS platforms and developers. Parent company Xplor offers SaaS with embedded payments in verticals including childcare, education, fitness, wellbeing, field services and personal services. It processed more than $37 billion in payments in 2024.

WORLDPAY has added domestic acquiring capabilities in Thailand. It will offer merchants alternative payment methods including Line Pay, TrueMoney and PromptPay as well as provide settlement in Thai baht. Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region in which Worldpay has domestic acquiring businesses are Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and South Korea.

EASTERN BANK in Bangladesh has issued a metal Elite Mastercard credit card. In-store cardholder authentication is provided by an embedded fingerprint sensor from Idex Biometrics. The card is manufactured in Korea by Kona I. Technology from Infineon enables biometric credentials to be recorded, processed, matched and stored on the secure element in the card that connects to the sensor. Cardholders will receive an at-home authentication kit to handle fingerprint enrollment.

Pay4You, a self-service payment portal for corporations, has integrated with Mastercard’s Virtual Card Network technology. The collaboration is aimed at capturing the approximately 20% of corporate payments that are not typically managed by a procurement process. Usually those  purchases are settled as account-to-account payments. Johanna Waara is SVP, Head of Corporate Solutions, Europe at Mastercard, johanna.waara@mastercard.com, www.mastercard.com.

Curve, provider of an app that lets six million consumers in the UK and EEA link their credit cards and debit cards in a digital Curve Wallet, will use the Thales D1 platform to offer in-store NFC-based payments to cardholders that had previously been limited to contactless payments from Apple or Android wallets.

Stripe will offer its merchants in France and Germany the open banking-based account-to-account payment service of TrueLayer. Germany and France, Europe’s two largest economies, are TrueLayer’s top markets outside of the UK. Last year, TrueLayer processed $2.34 billion in A2A payments in France and $1.64 billion in Germany.