Square CEO to depart

Alyssa Henry, CEO of Block’s merchant business Square, will leave the company Oct. 2, handing over the post to co-founder Jack Dorsey.

By Caitlin Mullen • Sept. 18, 2023

Digital dollar bill resurfaces in Congress

The proposed digital dollar would create an electronic version of the U.S. currency, but it wouldn’t be the same as a central bank digital currency.

By Lynne Marek • Sept. 18, 2023

Battle over credit card bill escalates

The fight over the Credit Card Competition Act is intensifying on Capitol Hill, with Senate floor diatribes and doughnut truck freebies. 

By Lynne Marek • Sept. 15, 2023

Square apologizes for last week’s outage

Block’s mea culpa for outages last week at its merchant unit, as well as its peer-to-peer business Cash App, acknowledged “this situation was made more difficult by our communication.”

By Caitlin Mullen • Sept. 14, 2023

Block CFO details Square’s revamped sales approach

Square’s refocused sales team is a “key investment area for us in the future,” Block executive Amrita Ahuja said Wednesday.

By Caitlin Mullen • Sept. 7, 2023

Toast CEO resigns

Chris Comparato, who has been CEO since 2015, told the restaurant payments company’s board on Friday that he’ll exit his leadership posts on Jan. 1.

By Caitlin Mullen • Sept. 5, 2023

Elavon, Ingenico team on new payments tool

U.S. Bank’s payments software unit is locking arms with the French hardware-maker to take on a raft of competitors targeting small businesses.

By Lynne Marek • Aug. 30, 2023

Toast CEO: Lessons learned from fee flub

“We learned a lot from this,” Toast CEO Chris Comparato said. “And there’s more questions we’re going to ask ourselves internally when we execute these types of pricing changes or structural changes moving forward.”

By Caitlin Mullen • Aug. 10, 2023

Shift4 shrinks workforce

The payments company cut 150 employees in the second quarter, executives said Thursday during an earnings conference call.

By Caitlin Mullen • Aug. 3, 2023

Square’s new GM for restaurants targets bigger operators

Ming-Tai Huh shares how his position as a restaurant operator and a tech executive has given him a singular view of the restaurant industry’s challenges.

By Aneurin Canham-Clyne • July 21, 2023

Toast axes 99-cent fee

The restaurant payments company said Wednesday it would remove the customer-paid order processing fee by the end of this week.

By Caitlin Mullen • July 19, 2023

Will Toast get burned by 99-cent fee?

The restaurant payments software company’s rivals needled Toast over the addition of a fee to be paid by consumers.

By Caitlin Mullen • July 12, 2023

Bank of America fined $250M over fake accounts, junk fees

Regulators say Bank of America opened credit card accounts without customers’ consent and misled consumers about rewards for card applications.

By Anna Hrushka • July 11, 2023

New Jersey legislature passes credit card surcharge bill

Lawmakers passed a bill that limits the surcharge a merchant can impose on consumers to the cost of processing a credit card transaction.

By Lynne Marek • July 11, 2023

Starbucks reverts to cash amid tech glitch

The coffee retailer was only able to accept cash and Starbucks App payments on Monday during a company-wide technology snafu.

By James Pothen • June 27, 2023

Toast adds 99-cent customer online ordering fee

The fee, paid by guests making orders of $10 or higher, will help fund Toast’s product investments and innovation, the company said. 

By Julie Littman • June 26, 2023

Toast teams with FreedomPay

Restaurant point-of-sale company Toast has partnered with commerce fintech FreedomPay to pursue larger customers, such as Starbucks and Shake Shack.

By Caitlin Mullen • June 12, 2023

PayPal revamps SMB approach

The digital payments pioneer told investors that it’s counting on a revised small and mid-sized business strategy to drive higher profit margins.

By Lynne Marek • June 9, 2023

Capital One buys Velocity Black

Acquiring the travel, entertainment and shopping concierge service may advance the bank’s interest in having customers use credit card points.

By Rajashree Chakravarty • June 8, 2023

Fiserv poised for more M&A

The payments processor is “highly engaged in” seeking targets to build up its merchant unit in the retail and services verticals, said CEO Frank Bisignano.

By Caitlin Mullen • June 8, 2023

Opponents of CCCA brace for reintroduction

Detractors of the Credit Card Competition Act proposal that failed last year are preparing for a reintroduction of similar legislation in Congress, as soon as this week.

By Lynne Marek • June 6, 2023

FIS CEO sizes up competition

CEO Stephanie Ferris pointed to Adyen as a major Worldpay competitor and talked about losing out on the retail side to Square and Clover.

By Lynne Marek • May 31, 2023

Consumers use cash to forget, study shows

New research suggests consumers’ payment method choice can depend on what they’re buying, especially if it’s a guilty-pleasure purchase. 

By Caitlin Mullen • May 30, 2023

Square adds franchise platform

Block-owned Square said the tool lets restaurant franchisors monitor multiple units on one dashboard.

By Julie Littman • May 17, 2023

Shift4 snags Focus POS for $45M

The acquisition gives Shift4 ownership of a business with ties to 10,000 restaurant merchants.

By Caitlin Mullen • May 4, 2023