Payment cards

China's UnionPay hopes to boost its reach in Italy by about a third, and has turned to local Italian acquirer Nexi to increase acceptance of UnionPay cards in stores and e-commerce.

Mastercard has appointed Sasha Krstic president of its Canada operations.

The Apple Card takes a more aggressively digital approach to credit card relationships than most other products on the market — but the technology behind it isn’t exclusive to Apple.

Petal's getting aggressive with its incentive marketing by approaching consumers with limited credit histories, and it's betting artificial intelligence can handle the higher risk.

Germans' devotion to cash is waning, as payments cards edged out cash for total transaction value in German retail sales in 2018.

Despite seismic shifts in the payments landscape over the last 45 years, how we handle chargebacks remains more or less the same, writes Monica Eaton-Cardone, COO of Chargebacks911 and CIO of its parent company Global Risk Technologies.

Apple Card's advantages are mostly available elsewhere, but Apple's marketing prowess will make it a formidable competitor, according to Jonathan Ebinger, a general partner at Blue Run Ventures.

Payments platform BizPayO is launching an online cash flow tool it says will help small and medium-size business owners tackle what amounts to a $3 trillion late-payment problem annually that undermines operations.

Much like Visa's CEO, Mastercard's top executive is viewing the recent mergers in the payments industry as a chance to build partnerships rather than a competitive threat.

NatWest has started a three-month testing period of a payment card using biometric fingerprint for authorization with 200 customers, saying it is the first such card issued by a U.K. bank.

The startup now has five bank partners and equity financing from four investment entities.

Wells Fargo & Co. has committed to converting all of its payment cards to contactless technology, beginning with credit cards and adding contactless debit cards this summer.

Once Apple looked at the state of its existing ecosystem, it identified a space it could uniquely deliver on, and activated the partners needed to make it come to fruition — a perfect example of the concept of ecosystem enablement, argues Frank Kenney, director of market strategy for Cleo.

U.S. lawmakers are not enthusiastic about the cashless trend being driven by the likes of Amazon Go, sweetgreen, and numerous other merchants of all sizes.

First it was the signatures. Now the biggest U.S. banks could be looking to get rid of card numbers, too.

Blockchain technology provider Yosemite X is following the spirit of the mega-retailers' disbanded Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) joint retailer venture, but on a local level.

The rewards card offered by the fintech Stash will let users accumulate stock of companies at which they frequently shop. The company said Tuesday that it has raised $65 million from investors and will offer the card in partnership with Green Dot.

Banks and Apple Pay have not always had easy partnerships, but a hot market for co-branded cards gives Goldman Sachs a chance to advance its consumer ambitions and Apple an opportunity to offset slumps in device sales.

In the tug-of-war over merchants refusing either cash or cards embroiling local governments in New Jersey, New York City and Philadelphia, the Iowa State Fair is taking the middle ground. Beginning next year, all fair vendors will be required to accept cash, cards and contactless payments through First Data’s Clover devices.

While many public policy initiatives focus on the 1.7 billion “unbanked,” we rarely hear about the nearly 1 billion people who do have a bank account and a smartphone but have no credit card nor cross-border-enabled debit, writes Eric Rosenthal, managing director of the Americas at Rapyd.