Payments

Fintechs have begun offering consumers installment-lending options to pay for airfare, putting competitive pressure on banks and credit unions that rely on travelers for significant credit card volume.

On Jun. 30, 2021. Dollars in thousands.

European authorities have linked the operation to investment scams that predate its sale to ING in 2018.

The bank tapped Antony Stephen, former head of Amazon Payments Europe, to oversee its move into small buy now/pay later loans. It is also reportedly seeking a partnership with the e-commerce giant in the U.K.

The card network plans to use technology acquired from CipherTrace to offer compliance and risk management services to firms that handle digital assets.

The card network aims to attract more merchant customers with an account that pays a 1.1% interest rate.

The decision came prior to news of a federal investigation of PAX Technology and a raid of its Florida locations that has prompted inquiries from customers about the security of devices that they have relied on for making and receiving payments.

The card network is working with new partners such as FIS and Moneris to connect banks, fintechs and merchants on its Visa Installments Solution platform. Its goal is to provide access to a broader spectrum of consumers than these companies can reach in one-off deals, CEO Al Kelly said.

The partnership — combining one of the biggest buy now/pay later lenders with one of the major digital payment companies — gives merchants a compelling new offering that could enable Klarna to take wallet share away from traditional card issuers.

The deal pairs up two of the world’s most valuable financial technology startups.

The bank is the first to offer a service from The Clearing House’s Real Time Payments network that lets businesses send bills to retail clients, who are given the option to pay them immediately.

The partnership enables issuers to offer credit and debit cards to spend crypto balances.

The New Payments Architecture was delayed for years due to COVID and other factors. It will move ahead focused only on push payments instead of replacing two national rails.

PayPal said it isn’t pursuing an acquisition of Pinterest, ending days of speculation over a potential $45 billion deal.

Steve Squeri said installment lenders primarily cater to debit card users and that even American Express's own BNPL product does not compete with the company's credit and charge cards.

Until we have true interoperability across payments platforms, competition will be stunted. Cryptocurrencies offer a model solution to breaking the hold banks and card networks have on consumer choice.

The auto lender’s acquisition of Fair Square Financial would diversify its consumer product lineup. The pandemic derailed its last effort to buy a card company.

Roger Hochschild predicts consumers will keep using their Discover cards in the months ahead, particularly when shopping online.

After Visa's deal to acquire Plaid fell through as a result of regulatory pressure, the data aggregator found new fintech partners including Square and Dwolla to support an account-to-account transfer service.