Industry News

Arab Financial Services, which is based in Bahrain, has formed a partnership with Etihad Al-Dawli Fintech in Libya to develop digital and electronic payment services in that country. EDF, which is PCI-DSS certified, plans to develop a digital wallet called UniPay.

GLOBAL PAYMENTS, FIS and GTCR have negotiated a deal that calls for Global Payments to purchase 100% of merchant acquirer Worldpay and FIS to acquire 100% of Tsys, a card account processing business owned by Global Payments. Private equity firm GTCR isthe majority owner of Worldpay, and FIS owns all other shares. Global Payments will pay $22.70 billion in cash and stock to assume complete ownership of Worldpay. FIS will pay $13.50 billion to acquire Tsys. The divestitures will occur simultaneously.

Trulioo will provide its automated Business Verification and Watchlist Screening products to cross-border B2B payment platform PingPong, which has surpassed $250 billion in cumulative transaction volume. PingPong holds more than 60 financial licenses and has 32 offices worldwide.

Fortis, which delivers embedded payments for software providers and ERP systems, has enhanced its payment processing support for users of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The improvements aim to streamline financial operations and impact cash flow while maintaining compliance with security standards. Fortis’s native integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central handles transactions across ecommerce, field services, card-present, card-not-present and call centers as well as omnichannel.

MoneyGram, a global money transfer company, offers US customers that use its MoneyGram Online service Plaid’s technology to help them authenticate their bank accounts. The company expects to expand its use of Plaid to other markets later this year. MoneyGram serves more than 50 million people annually in over 200 countries and territories. Plaid is connected to financial institutions in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe.

Idemia Secure Transactions’ token platform will be integrated with the domestic network operated by the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (Napas). Card issuers, token requesters and digital wallet providers can implement the tokenization service via APIs. The partnership also supports ecommerce transactions using in-app payments.

Juniper Payments, a Velera company, has added an embedded AI-driven fraud prevention engine to its Payments Hub to provide fraud detection at the point of origination and processing for instant payments like FedNow and RTP as well as risk scores for wire services payments.

U.S. DISTRICT COURT Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas has ruled that the Credit Card Accountability and Disclosure Act of 2009 was violated when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau instituted an $8 cap on fees issuers can charge consumers who make late payments. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and five other organizations had petitioned the court to overturn the CFPB’s action. The CFPB, now headed by a Trump administration appointee, was among the organizations that requested the court to overturn its own previous ruling.

Klarna’s immediate debit and interest-free install payment options will be available for in-store purchase at 100,000 small businesses in the US that use Fiserv’s Clover POS system. Shoppers will see Klarna’s logo on Clover devices. More merchants will be added in 2026.

Ant International’s WorldFirst all-in-one digital cross-border payment and treasury account service for global businesses has launched World Card, a Mastercard-branded virtual card for small businesses. WorldFirst provides services to more than one million small and midsize businesses. The card will be available in Asia, Europe, Oceania and Africa.

CPI Card offers Web Push Provisioning (WPP) to card issuers to support cardholders using digital wallets. WPP adds payment credentials directly to a wallet through a button on an issuer's websites. It is an alternative to provisioning a mobile app. Cardholders gain immediate access to their digital card while waiting for a physical card to be delivered.

U.S. Bank Business Essentials is a new checking account product that also enables businesses to accept card payments, including receiving free same-day access to their funds and a free mobile card reader. The bank is the fifth largest merchant acquirer in the US of Visa and Mastercard purchase volume through its Elavon subsidiary.

TerraPay, a provider of cross-border payment services in more than 30 countries, will support real-time money transfers to bank accounts and mobile wallets for PayPal customers in the Middle East and Africa.

Fexco, which operates in 50 countries, has expanded the capabilities of its payUnite payment orchestration platform to pursue airline, retail and hospitality industry customers. The, which already processes over $17 billion annually for cruise industry customers, offers alternative payment methods, card tokenization, smart acquirer routing, value-added services, omnichannel payments, and a reporting and reconciliation engine.

VikingCloud, a global provider of cybersecurity and PCI compliance, is working with Mastercard to help protect small and midsized businesses from cyber threats. Statistics indicate that one in three SMBs experience an online attack because they are less prepared than larger companies. The collaboration combines Mastercard’s risk scoring and evaluation capabilities with VikingCloud’s cybersecurity remediation tools.

CellPoint Digital has integrated Checkout.com’s global acquiring, digital payment processing and AI driven optimization capabilities with the payment orchestration platform it provides to airlines and travel merchants.

Unipaas, a UK-based provider of embedded payments through its SaaS platform, has formed a partnership with Mastercard. The companies want to promote card payment acceptance by small and midsized companies in industries including health services, education, field services and professional training.

FIS’ Premium Payback real-time pay with points service was rolled out to Bilt, allowing Bilt's Mastercard cardholders to redeem their Bilt rewards easily at checkout, allowing them to save money instantly when shopping. The program will roll out in the third quarter of 2025 to all eligible Bilt Members.

Affirm’s pay-over-time products are now available to merchants that use J.P. Morgan’s Commerce Platform. Shoppers undergo an eligibility check. If approved, they can access pay-over-time options for purchases that range from $35 to $30,000.

Aurora Payments has integrated network tokenization into its Arise payment platform. Tokens are issued directly by the card networks on behalf of issuing banks. Tokenization helps merchants, software providers and ISOs reduce fraud, increase approval rates and lower processing costs. Aurora Payments supports more than 27,000 merchants that generate $12 billion annually in purchase card volume. When fully integrated with Arise, the tokenization service requires no development work, hardware updates or downtime. It can be sues for both card-present and card-not-present transactions. Aurora supports more than 27,000 merchants and processes over $12 billion in annual payments volume.

Everee, which provides software that enables companies to pay both W-2 workers and 1099 contractors as often as daily, has launched the Expedite Visa Pay Card in partnership with Dlivrd, a white-label delivery management service for delivery drivers. The Bancorp Bank is the debit card issuer.

Deluxe payment processing services has been integrated with SchoolAuction.net’s platform used by schools and nonprofit organizations for online, in advance or live fundraising events.

Feedzai is providing its real-time fraud prevention, merchant monitoring and regulatory compliance platform to Highnote, a card-account processor expanding into acquiring processing services.

Stride Bank, a community bank in Oklahoma, has become a card issuing partner for the Affirm Visa debit card, which offers BNPL options. Affirm had 1.7 million active debit cardholders as of December 31, 2024. Those cards are issued by Evolve B&T.

Ingo Payments, provider of a fullservice embedded banking platform, will use Marqeta as its issuer partner for card account processing.