Industry News

KYIVSTAR, provider of mobile and fixed line voice and data communications in Ukraine, will test Starling Direct to Cell satellite technology for use in payment infrastructure and financial services in partnership with Mastercard.

ADYEN, a provider of end-to-end payment capabilities for global retailers, has completed a partnership with SAP, one of the world’s largest enterprise software companies, for a fully integrated ecommerce payment service. The open payment framework is a prebuilt, cloud-native extension for SAP Commerce Cloud. It provides SAP customers with access to Adyen without extensive development work.

PAYROC, owner of the 12th largest portfolio of merchant card processing contracts in the US, offers its merchants in-person contactless payment acceptance using their iPhones. With the Payroc Mobile iOS app, no terminal, dongle or extra device is needed.

NTT DATA has signed a memorandum of understanding with National Payments Corporation of India to establish payment acceptance in Japan for Unified Payments Interface, India’s real-time payment system. The companies aim to serve the growing number of Indian tourists in Japan with an account-to-account instant transfer service that uses a mobile payment application.

CRATE & BARREL, a US-based home furnishing retailer and member of the Otto Group, offers its customers and the customers of its sister company CB2, a Visa Signature credit card in partnership with Imprint, a specialist in co-brand card program design and management. Cardholders will receive 10% back in rewards dollars on purchases at Crate & Barrel, CB2, Hudson Grace and Crate & Kids stores and 4% back at other home retailers and grocery stores. The card is issued by First Bank & Trust, Brookings, South Dakota.

U.S. BANK credit cardholders can now view and manage digital subscriptions within their U.S. Bank Mobile App and online banking. The capability, which also includes access to digital receipts, was created in partnership with Ethoca, a Mastercard company.

RISKIFIED, a top provider of fraud prevention and risk intelligence to ecommerce merchants, has formed a partnership with cybersecurity firm Human Security. The companies will create technology that helps merchants implement a trust framework for agentic commerce, a channel in which existing rules-based fraud management is hampered by a lack of key behavioral signals. That problem can lead to both false declines and undetected fraud.

KLARNA, which received an e-money license in the UK in July 2025, has launched a flexible debit card product in that country. The Visa card is debit by default, but cardholders can apply for a spending plan for purchases they want to finance over time. Everyone who signs up for a Klarna Card automatically gets a free Klarna balance account where they can store funds.

BEALLS, operator of 660 retail locations in 22 US states, has integrated with Flexa to provide in-store payment acceptance for 99 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether and stablecoins. Flexa handles payments from more than 300 crypto wallet apps across more than a dozen blockchains.

IDEX BIOMETRICS has launched India’s first RuPay biometric payment card in partnership with processor Hitachi Payment Services. Airtel Payments Bank is the card issuer.

MASTERCARD’S Payment Optimization Platform (POP), created to increase card authorization rates for merchants, has demonstrated a 9% to 15% increase in conversions in early pilot tests. POP evaluates over a trillion combinations of data elements to create the most optimal authorization in near real time. It has been rolled out to Adyen, Neopay, Tap Payments and Worldpay.

STRIPE, which launched a stablecoin payment acceptance service for businesses in 2024, has expanded the offer to subscription businesses with recurring revenue models. The company says that 19 of the 20 AI companies that use Stripe for payment processing receive 60% of their revenue from outside the US. They can accept payments in stablecoin and receive settlement in US dollars. Fiat and stablecoin subscription payments are managed in the Stripe dashboard.

BLUECHAIN, a UK-based payment orchestration platform that supports B2B payments, has added a layer to support a business’s ability to pay any supplier using a Visa card—even when the supplier does not accept card payments. Billing, collection, reconciliation and merchant-of-record requirements are handled by Bluechain.

EDENRED has received certification from Visa to issue cards in Europe. The company’s specific-purpose payment platform, serves customers with benefits, engagement, fleet, mobility and B2B products. Edenred also gains access to Visa commercial payment products and services and B2B payment capabilities for use cases that include insurance payouts, travel supplier payments and other embedded finance

YEELD is offering its credit card surcharging technology to merchants in Canada. The software is compliant with provincial laws and network regulations. Surcharges are capped at 2.4% or actual cost, whichever is lower, and are calculated in near real time.

KNEX, an Oracle partner, has designed, built and implemented Visa Virtual Card Adaptor, a preconfigured, low-code integration layer that enables organizations to pay vendors with Visa virtual cards directly inside Oracle ERP systems, including Fusion Applications and NetSuite. Visa and Knex are rolling out a pilot program with select clients and issuing banks this quarter.

FORTIS, a provider of embedded payment processing services to software providers and ERP systems, has added support for Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone technology. With Tap to Pay, software providers can enable businesses to accept all types of contactless payments in person using their iPhone XS or later handset, running the latest version of iOS.

I2C has been certified by Visa to enable the tokenized Click to Pay online checkout service worldwide. The company’s credit, debit and prepaid card clients can offer the single Click to pay service to their Visa cardholders globally via a single integration. Click to Pay reduces shopping card abandonment and increases sales.

PLAID has launched Transfer for Platforms, which enables vertical SaaS platforms to integrate bill payments directly into their products. Use cases include collections for rent, medical bills or tuition and disbursements for vendor payments. The onboarding process stays within the SaaS product, so customers don’t have to double enroll. Onboarding progress, payment activity and performance indicators are available from a single dashboard.

THREDD will provide virtual card processing and related services to Gennius XYZ, a company that creates immersive digital experiences in ecommerce and Web3 ecosystems. Gennius XYZ specializes in tokenizing assets to drive consumer interactions for banks, digital wallet providers, airlines and other companies, with the aim of unlocking new revenue streams and increasing customer loyalty. Thredd will support Gennius XYZ to issue virtual cards instantly and scale its One currency loyalty solution to customers worldwide.

GALILEO, SoFi’s technology platform, has joined the Amazon Web Services Partner Network. The 130,000 companies in the network gain faster and easier access to Galileo’s payment processing and financial services technology.

WORLDPAY, the third largest merchant acquirer in the US, has signed an exclusive agreement to provide payment processing services to Kroger, the largest supermarket operator in the US based on annual revenue. The deal covers in-store, online and mobile transactions.

GR4VY, provider of a cloud-based, no-code payment orchestration platform, will offer its merchants the ability to integrate with Mastercard Merchant Cloud to access network tokenization, Click to Pay, gateway and other services. Once connected, merchants access the services from Mastercard without additional development work.

CORPAY and MASTERCARD have expanded their partnership to include near real-time payments for corporations, small businesses and financial institutions in 22 markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Previously, Mastercard made Corpay the exclusive provider of large-ticket cross-border payments, currency management and risk management services for its clients.

SAMSUNG PAY wallet users have access to a free 3-month subscription to Coinbase One, a membership that provides free trading fees on the purchase of select crypto assets, boosted rewards on staked assets and exclusive offers from Coinbase partners. They also receive a $25 credit after placing their first trade on Coinbase.