Bill Weighs the Best Path to Profits
Bill Holdings, a San Jose‑based business‑payments software firm, is weighing a sale after activist investors demanded higher profitability. The company reported a $2.6 million loss for Q4 2025, a sharp reversal from a $33.5 million profit a year earlier, while revenue rose 14% to $414.7 million. New board members, including two from Starboard Value, will decide whether Bill pursues a standalone turnaround or a sale to private‑equity. Analysts estimate a take‑out value of $59‑$70 per share, well above its current $47 price.
Judge Backs Illinois Law on Card Fees
A federal judge upheld Illinois' Interchange Fee Prohibition Act, which bans card‑swipe interchange fees on sales tax and gratuities, finding that the National Bank Act does not preempt the state law. The ruling, issued by Judge Virginia Kendall, also struck...
EWA Products Aren’t Loans: Fintechs
District courts have attempted to classify earned‑wage‑access (EWA) services as loans under the Truth in Lending Act and Military Lending Act, prompting appeals to the Ninth Circuit. The cases involve fintech firms such as Cleo AI, Empower (now Tilt), Dave...
How to Fix Subscription Pay Friction
Subscription businesses face involuntary churn when payment methods fail, costing the industry up to $440 billion annually. Butter Payments uses machine‑learning on 128 data points to predict and recover failed transactions, delivering up to a 10% boost in annual recurring revenue...
Zip Debuts Pay-in-2 Option
Zip has introduced a pay‑in‑two option for its U.S. customers, allowing purchases to be split into two interest‑free installments rather than the traditional four. Shoppers pay half at checkout and the remaining half two weeks later. The rollout follows a...
Arizona Mulls Card Rate Cap
Arizona State Senator David Gowan introduced a bill that would cap credit‑card interest rates at 15%, limit late fees to $10, and ban merchant surcharges, applying retroactively to the previous year. The proposal cleared Senate Finance and Rules Committees and...
Spire Names New CEO to Grow Pay-by-Bank
Spire announced the appointment of former Fiserv executive Jennifer LaClair as its new chief executive officer. The leadership change coincides with a $10 million capital raise aimed at scaling its pay‑by‑bank platform, which enables consumers to transfer funds directly from bank...
Modernizing Payments Is Essential
The Federal Reserve announced Fedwire will run on Sundays and holidays, signaling a regulatory move toward 24‑hour payments. Mihail Duta of Finastra argues banks must modernize to meet digital‑native expectations for instant fund availability. Legacy systems lack the scalability and...
Mastercard Offers Agentic AI Tools
Mastercard announced it will roll out a new suite of agentic AI tools for business customers in the second quarter of 2026. The platform lets firms build, test and deploy AI‑powered agents to enhance security, payments processing and customer‑experience functions....
Why some Payments Companies Want to Be Banks
Fintech powerhouses such as Stripe, PayPal, Affirm, Revolut, Fiserv and Checkout.com are applying for federal or state banking charters. Analysts say the move promises greater control over payment settlement, cost savings and the ability to offer FDIC‑insured accounts. A special...
PayPal Appoints New CEO
PayPal announced that board member and former HP chief executive Enrique Lores will become its new CEO and president effective March 1, replacing Alex Chriss, who has led the firm since September 2023. The board said the change reflects dissatisfaction with the company’s...
Embedded Finance to ‘Explode’: Panel
Embedded finance is set to explode as apps embed payments, lending, and other services, according to a Cross River Bank panel. Executives highlighted the stickiness created when platforms, lenders, and brands acquire customers simultaneously. They also noted a surge in...
Visa Doles Out Stablecoin Advice
Visa has launched stablecoin advisory services to guide financial institutions, merchants and tech firms on integrating digital assets, debuting the offering last month. The move coincides with the expansion of stablecoin‑enabled cards to about 50 countries and a settlement run...
Mastercard Reworks Cap One Pact
Mastercard announced a renegotiated services agreement with Capital One, extending its network role after Capital One’s $35 billion acquisition of Discover. The new pact will route a large portion of the newly acquired credit accounts through Mastercard, though details remain limited....
Fiserv Sued over Alleged Lax Security
Payment processor Fiserv faces a lawsuit from FiCare Federal Credit Union alleging that its Virtual Branch Next platform lacked basic cybersecurity controls, allowing hackers to hijack customer accounts and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars. The complaint claims Fiserv failed...
State Legislatures Mull Remittance Restrictions
State legislators in Florida and Missouri have introduced bills that would bar money‑transfer providers from processing remittances for individuals classified as unauthorized aliens. The proposals require firms to verify sender status, submit quarterly compliance reports, and face penalties of up...
Amazon to Halt Palm Payments
Amazon announced it will remove all Amazon One palm‑reading payment terminals from its stores by June 3, citing limited customer adoption. The decision coincides with the company’s broader retreat from its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh concepts, some of which may be converted...
Zelle Network Expands by 15%
Early Warning Services announced that 337 small banks and credit unions joined the Zelle peer‑to‑peer network in 2025, boosting the total participating institutions by roughly 15% to 2,537. The new members are predominantly community‑focused firms with assets under $10 billion, reflecting...
DailyPay Seeks to Dismiss NY Lawsuit
Earned‑wage‑access providers DailyPay and MoneyLion have filed motions to dismiss New York Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuits alleging illegal, usurious loans. The companies contend their on‑demand‑pay services are not loans, referencing a CFPB advisory opinion that excludes many EWA products...
Credit Card Delinquencies Drop, Says Fed Bank
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reports that credit‑card delinquencies fell in the third quarter of 2025 despite rising balances and spending. Past‑due balances dropped to 3.29 percent for 30‑day delinquency and 1.62 percent for 90‑day delinquency, while the net charge‑off rate...
Secret Service Foils Card Skimmers
The U.S. Secret Service’s fraud‑prevention unit partnered with local law‑enforcement to locate and deactivate 411 illegal point‑of‑sale card‑skimming devices in 2025. Across 22 coordinated operations, agents inspected roughly 9,000 businesses and examined about 60,000 terminals, potentially averting $428.1 million in fraudulent...
Payment Outages Cost $44B in Lost Sales Annually
A new study by Dynatrace, FreedomPay and Retail Economics estimates U.S. retail and hospitality lose $44.4 billion annually due to payment system disruptions. Outages average two hours, yet shoppers abandon purchases after just seven minutes, costing $1.2 billion per minute in the...
Affirm Seeks Nevada Bank Charter
Affirm Holdings has filed applications with Nevada’s Financial Institutions Division and the FDIC to obtain a state charter for an industrial loan company, dubbed "Affirm Bank." The move aims to expand its buy‑now‑pay‑later (BNPL) offerings and diversify beyond merchant‑only financing....
Verifone Tackles Identity Challenge
Verifone is tackling the biggest friction in omnichannel commerce—consumer identity—by unifying identification, loyalty and payment into a single transaction flow. The company highlights that while digital shoppers can be recognized with cookies and device fingerprints, in‑store shoppers remain anonymous until...
Why Shift4 Targets Big Merchants
Shift4 Payments is deliberately courting large, multi‑location merchants and venues because they face fewer payment‑processor alternatives. CEO Taylor Lauber highlighted the appeal of complex software environments, citing the New York Yankees, Hilton Worldwide, and Caesar’s Entertainment as prime examples. The...
Fraud Vs. Conversion: How Payments Can Reduce Risk without Adding Friction
Digital payments must balance speed with security. Consumers abandon 88% of checkout flows due to friction, while e‑commerce fraud costs $44 billion in 2024. The article outlines a multi‑layered strategy—strong authentication, merchant risk scoring, AI‑driven network detection, tokenization, and collaborative data...
Bill CFO Reflects on PayPal Tenure
Rohini Jain, newly appointed CFO of Bill Holdings, brings a decade‑long tenure at PayPal where she helped grow revenue from $10 billion to $30 billion. Her career spans GE, Walmart, eBay and PayPal, giving her deep fintech, operational and manufacturing expertise. Jain...
PayPal Alums Build Fraud Startup
PayPal veterans Arthi Rajan Makhija, Chirag Vaya and Jayan Tharayil have launched Pinch AI, a fraud‑prevention platform for retail returns, and secured $5 million in seed funding led by Dynamo and Infinity Ventures. The San Jose startup leverages AI to assess...
Visa, Mastercard Rebuff Merchant Gripes
Visa and Mastercard have filed a federal court reply defending a proposed settlement that would modestly lower interchange fees and grant merchants new card‑acceptance options. The settlement, announced in November, would cut posted credit interchange rates by ten basis points...
Affirm to Offer BNPL for Rent
Buy‑now‑pay‑later provider Affirm Holdings announced a pilot with fintech platform Esusu to extend its installment loans to renters. The service will let eligible tenants split rent into two interest‑free payments every two weeks, with some qualifying for zero‑APR loans. While...
House Democrat Joins EWA Effort
A bipartisan draft of the Earned Wage Access Consumer Protection Act was introduced in the House, with Republican Rep. Bryan Steil filing the bill and Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres announcing co‑sponsorship. The legislation adds mandatory fee disclosures, defines “tips,” requires...
Merchants Take on Banks with Trump’s Help
President Trump has thrown his support behind two credit‑card reform initiatives: a temporary 10% interest‑rate cap and the long‑standing Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA). The move pits a coalition of merchants, who say card fees have surged 70% to $187.2 billion...
Google Takes Agentic Retail Into Chat
Google unveiled a universal commerce protocol (UCP) to streamline AI‑driven shopping, partnering with retailers like Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Lowe’s. The open‑source standard, backed by about 20 major payment firms including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe, creates a common language...
BillingPlatform Names New CEO
BillingPlatform announced that Chris Bishop, former chief customer officer at Conga, will assume the role of chief executive officer effective Jan 5, 2026. Bishop succeeds long‑time CEO Dennis Wall, who will remain on the board. The Denver‑based payments firm has raised a total...
Checkout.com Grabs Special Banking Charter
Checkout.com has received conditional approval from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance for a merchant acquirer limited purpose bank charter, positioning it to operate as its own acquirer in the United States. The charter, similar to those granted to...
How the US Can Drive Payments Modernization
The United States, as the new G20 president, faces pressure to modernize its cross‑border payments system. Unlike peers such as the UK and Singapore, the U.S. restricts direct access to Federal Reserve payment rails to depository banks, forcing non‑bank firms...
Toast, Clover Battle for Small Eateries
Payments giant Fiserv’s Clover unit commands roughly 20% of the U.S. small‑restaurant point‑of‑sale market, covering about 175,000 locations, while fintech Toast follows with an estimated 17% share at 145,000 sites. Square and Global Payments round out the top four, holding...
Marqeta Names Stripe, JPMorgan Alum as CFO
Marqeta announced that former Stripe finance executive Patti Kangwankij will become its chief financial officer on February 9, succeeding CEO Mike Milotich, who has been serving in an interim CFO capacity. Kangwankij brings extensive experience from Stripe, JPMorgan and her...
How Agentic AI Will Lure Shoppers
Nick Campbell, chief product officer at Xplor Pay, discussed the rise of agentic commerce – AI‑driven buying agents that can search, select and pay for goods. The market is forecast to reach $1.7 trillion in sales by 2030, with major players...
Fiserv’s Clover Adopts Biometrics
Fiserv announced that its Clover point‑of‑sale platform will soon support biometric payments, allowing customers to authorize purchases with facial or palm scans. The feature, built in partnership with fintech firm Wink, will debut at the National Retail Federation conference and...
How Payments Will Evolve: 6 Industry Trends to Watch in 2026
Payments will undergo major shifts in 2026 as regulators solidify a stablecoin framework under the Genius Act and states step up oversight of BNPL and earned‑wage‑access products. AI‑driven agentic commerce and personalized checkout experiences are set to boost transaction volumes...
Consumer Groups Attack Card Settlement
Consumer and small‑business advocacy groups have joined merchants in objecting to a new Visa and Mastercard settlement aimed at ending long‑running antitrust lawsuits over interchange fees. The proposal, unveiled in November, would trim credit‑card interchange rates by just 0.1% for...
DOJ Presses Visa Antitrust Case
The Justice Department is advancing its antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging the company maintains an illegal monopoly in the U.S. debit‑card market. The case, filed in September 2024, now faces a scheduling battle as DOJ proposes a four‑month discovery delay...
Klarna Faces Investor Lawsuit
Klarna Group, the Swedish buy‑now‑pay‑later firm, faces a federal lawsuit filed by a shareholder seeking class‑action status after its stock fell below the IPO price. The complaint alleges the September 2025 prospectus materially misrepresented credit risk and omitted the fact...
FIS Agrees to Pay $210M Settlement
Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) agreed to a $210 million settlement with investors alleging misleading statements about its 2019 $35 billion Worldpay acquisition. The deal offers roughly 42 cents per damaged share, reduced to about 32 cents after legal fees and expenses. Executives, including...
Fed Report Stirs Debit Fee Debate
The Federal Reserve’s biennial report shows debit‑card interchange fees climbed 3.9% annually, reaching $34.12 billion in 2023. Merchants argue the fees are excessive and have urged the Fed to lower the statutory cap, which remains at the 2011 level of 21 cents...
CFPB Shifts on EWA Policy, Again
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an advisory opinion declaring that employer‑partnered earned wage access (EWA) products are not loans under the Truth in Lending Act, and formally rescinded its July 2024 proposed rule that would have treated them as credit....
Executive Shuffle: Fiserv, DailyPay and MoneyGram
Payments firms closed the year with a series of senior hires aimed at strengthening brand, philanthropy, investor relations, and finance functions. DailyPay appointed former eBay executive Caitlin Allen as chief brand and communications officer, while Visa promoted Najada Kumbuli to...
