PAYMENTS NEWS
Visa Predicts Agentic Commerce Will Be Mainstream in 2026; BigCommerce Adds Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite
Dec 18, 2025
Visa Inc. announced early Thursday hundreds of artificial intelligence-based and agent-initiated transactions have been completed in collaboration with partners, a milestone the card network says is a signal that agentic commerce is poised to become mainstream in 2026.
Walmart wants out of card class
Dec 17, 2025
The retailer says a proposed settlement with Visa and Mastercard over card fees demonstrates the need for major changes to the plaintiff class.
Amex CEO slams surcharges
Dec 17, 2025
Steve Squeri said higher surcharges would be a negative experience for the card network’s customers.
FDIC Proposes Rule for Banks Seeking to Issue Stablecoin Payments
Dec 17, 2025
In its first action to implement the GENIUS Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is considering a proposed rule that would establish procedures under which the insured depository institutions the regulator supervises could seek to issue stablecoin payments.
Open banking fees fuel debate
Dec 17, 2025
Banks, fintechs, data aggregators and consumer advocates are sharply divided over fees for sharing consumer financial data under open banking, with large banks imposing per-request charges on data access could raise costs and chill innovation. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Merchants rely on fintechs and payments apps that use financial data to power services like reconciliation, accounting integrations, and cash-flow tools. If banks charge for data access, it could increase costs or slow development of merchant-facing fintech services, especially as federal rules on open data sharing remain uncertain.
Shopify Brings Merchant Catalogs to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot
Dec 15, 2025
Shopify this week introduced its Agentic Storefronts to put merchant products directly into the AI chat interfaces, where many shoppers now begin their product searches.
Credit card swipe fees are higher than ever, causing “cost creep”
Dec 11, 2025
North Carolina lawmakers are weighing changes to the state’s ban on credit-card surcharges, as businesses increasingly push for flexibility to recover the costs of accepting card payments. The attorney general’s office has signaled openness to clarifying what’s allowed, while consumer advocates warn that lifting restrictions could lead to higher costs for shoppers. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Clearer state rules on surcharging would help merchants understand what they can legally implement, reduce compliance risk, and potentially expand their choice of cost-recovery tools.
Visa’s new program vexes merchants
Dec 11, 2025
The card giant’s revamped system for assessing interchange fees on credit card transactions has socked some merchants with higher costs.
Payments players cozy up to crypto
Dec 11, 2025
Crypto is edging further into mainstream payments as companies like Visa, PayPal, and Stripe expand blockchain-based settlement and stablecoin capabilities, aiming to make transactions faster and more efficient. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: These emerging options could streamline global payments, reduce operational complexity, and create new choices for moving money more efficiently.
Banks face new risks as account takeover fraud spikes 250%
Dec 11, 2025
Banks are reporting a sharp rise in account takeover fraud as criminals exploit weaknesses in digital authentication, reuse stolen credentials, and use social-engineering tactics to bypass controls. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Rising account takeover activity can spill over into merchant environments through fraudulent purchases, chargebacks, and heightened verification needs, making it critical for merchants to strengthen their own identity and fraud-prevention strategies.
Fed proposes reduced check services
Dec 9, 2025
The Federal Reserve proposed scaling back legacy check services as check usage continues to decline, shifting more volume to private-sector processors and streamlining its own operations. The changes aim to reduce costs and modernize settlement processes. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Evolving check infrastructure may affect how quickly and reliably check payments clear, which can influence back-office operations, fraud management, and customer payment options.
How the penny shortage complicates New York's cash protection law
Dec 5, 2025
New York State has a new law requiring retailers to accept cash, creating a new challenge for merchants that are still awaiting guidance on how to manage a penny shortage.
Hybrid AI Bridges Decision-Making Transparency Gap
Dec 2, 2025
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes part of everyday business operations, companies rethink how they want these systems to behave. AI models generate quick predictions but often struggle to explain why the model chose a specific outcome. That lack of clarity leads to mistakes, customer friction and regulatory scrutiny. To avoid these problems, companies now turn to hybrid AI, an approach that blends machine learning with clear rules, human judgment and reasoning steps that people can trace.
Market Intelligence The key difference between a 'tokenized deposit' and a 'deposit token'
Dec 2, 2025
Noelle Acheson explains the significant differences between tokenized deposits and deposit tokens, and why it matters for the future of banking and payments.
How MCP Turns Passive AI Assistants Into Active Enterprise Agents
Dec 2, 2025
The Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is an open standard introduced by Anthropic in late 2024 to make artificial intelligence (AI) systems more useful in real-world business settings. At its core, MCP allows AI models such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to securely connect to business tools, databases and workflows.
Debit card rewards are coming back in vogue
Nov 14, 2025
WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: This signals a shift: loyalty programs tied to debit (not just credit) are gaining traction, meaning merchants that participate in or support airline/hospitality loyalty ecosystems should anticipate broader competition and more entry points for consumer engagement beyond traditional card tiers, opening new opportunities (and risks) in how loyalty and payments interplay in your omnichannel strategy.
Senators Back Open Banking Rule
Nov 21, 2025
A group of Democratic Senators urged the CFPB to reinstate and strengthen the “Personal Financial Data Rights” rule under the Dodd‑Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, citing concerns that large banks are limiting consumer data access and charging excessive fees, hindering competition in the open-banking ecosystem. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: A strong open-banking rule helps merchants by fostering a more competitive ecosystem, lowering friction of onboarding and enabling smarter payment flows.
Banks plead for federal guidance as penny shortage spreads
Nov 21, 2025
Banks are facing a growing shortage of the one-cent coin as production has largely stopped, and over 100 of the Federal Reserve’s 165 coin-distribution terminals are neither supplying nor accepting pennies, leaving retailers unable to give exact change and banks unable to supply them. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Lack of federal guidance puts merchants at potential legal risk (for example around equal pricing for cash versus benefit-cards) and may increase your operational complexity and cost.
Banks face challenges ahead of Saturday’s ISO 20022 deadline
Nov 21, 2025
Banks are scrambling as the global ISO 20022 migration deadline approaches. Legacy systems, manual processes and incomplete infrastructure upgrades are causing widespread concern ahead of SWIFT’s shut-off of older message formats. WHY IT MATTERS TO MERCHANTS: Although this is a bank-side story, merchants must pay attention: richer, more structured payment data means smoother reconciliation, fewer exceptions and faster settlement.