How Prepaid Products Continue to Transform Holiday Shopping
Gift cards have become a year-round payment vehicle, in part because birthdays are the most popular occasion for prepaid purchases. However, even with other spikes in prepaid shopping throughout the year—such as Dads and Grads season in June—the holidays are still the single most popular time to purchase prepaid products. As Jordan Hirschfield, Director of […]
American Express Dramatically Increases Merchant Base
The average yearly spending on American Express cards is significantly higher than that of competing credit cards, which helps explain its thriving network of merchants. The lender’s cards are now accepted at roughly 160 million merchants worldwide, representing a five-fold increase over the past eight years. One of the main reasons for this growth is […]
Insurance Fraud: Not a Problem for Younger People
Younger people are far more likely to consider committing insurance fraud than older generations, a finding that aligns with other age-related patterns in fraudulent behavior. Researchers at the University of Georgia surveyed respondents on whether they would consider such actions such as including damages from a previous incident in a new car accident claim or […]
Fighting Authorized Push Payment Fraud on All Fronts
The modern financial landscape has created fertile ground for authorized push payment (APP) fraud, where victims are tricked into willingly transferring money under false pretenses. The expectation for real-time banking and instant payment settlement means transactions are often completed in seconds—leaving little room for reversal. Cross-border payments have become routine, even for everyday consumer purchases. […]
Irish Banks Announce Payment App to Compete with Revolut
Ireland’s three largest banks are once again joining forces to develop a rival instant payments app to counter Revolut. The new service, Zippay, will launch early next year and be available to the banks’ five million eligible customers. AIB, Bank of Ireland, and PTSB are backing the initiative, and other financial institutions—such as credit unions—are […]
Bad Actors Exploit Apple’s iCloud Calendar for Phishing Attempts
As email fraud filters become more sophisticated, cybercriminals are turning to Apple’s iCloud to bypass safeguards and deliver phishing messages. According to BleepingComputer, bad actors are sending fraudulent calendar invites that claim a victim’s PayPal account has been billed for hundreds of dollars and instruct them to review a purchase receipt. The objective is to […]
From Idea to Swipe: How to Launch a Winning Card Program
Launching a card is a complex process with the potential for long-term financial gains—if executed flawlessly. Yet, it moves quickly, with an average timeline of just six to seven months from concept to launch. Any major player in today’s financial landscape—from legacy banks to fintech apps to fledgling retailers—has at least considered launching a card. […]
Stripe and Fireblocks Launch Competing Stablecoin Rails
Just as stablecoins have proliferated, there will be more networks to support them. Blockchain infrastructure firm Fireblocks unveiled its global stablecoin network, which is designed to connect rails as diverse as foreign exchange companies, domestic payment platforms, and stablecoin issuers. In a news release, Fireblocks likened its network to cross-border payments system Swift and noted […]
Antom Hopes Asian Shoppers Are Ready for Agentic AI
As agentic AI promises to take on the role of a personal shopper, Antom, a division of the Chinese financial giant Ant Group, has launched a new agentic payment solution for the Asia Pacific region. In a partnership with Mastercard and Visa, Antom is introducing tokenized, card-based agentic payments that would enable AI agents to […]
Is There Any Reason for Merchants to Dip Their Toes into Faster Payments?
Faster payments have made a big splash in the payment processing industry, with the Federal Reserve’s FedNow platform rolling out in 2023 to join its older rival, the Clearinghouse’s RTP network. But for merchants, the revolution has not happened yet—and might never happen. The use cases for retailers, to this point, simply do not exist. […]