Biometric Authentication in Payments: What SMB Merchants Need to Know For years, securing card payments has meant a...
Operations
The Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) – A Point / Counter – Point Dive into Key Topics
Credit Card Competition Act Benefits for Merchants and Consumers Point: The Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) has...
What Impacts Would a 10 Percent Credit Card Interest Rate Cap Engender – A Point Counter-Point Examination
A Point Counter-Point Examination By: Dean Sheaffer, Mark Horwedel, and John MacAllisterThe President recently...
What the Proposed Visa–Mastercard Settlement Could Mean for Merchants: A Closer Look at “Honor All Cards” Changes
A proposed settlement announced in late 2025 could change this dynamic. While still subject to court approval, the...
The 1.25% Interchange Cap: What SMBs Need to Know About the Proposed Visa/Mastercard Settlement
If you’re a small or mid-sized business owner, you’ve probably heard buzz about the proposed Visa/Mastercard...
What Interchange-Related Benefits Does the Proposed Settlement Provide?
1. A multi-year reduction in credit-card interchange Visa and Mastercard have agreed to reduce average credit...
💰 The Vanishing Penny: What Small Merchants Need to Know Before It’s Gone
You’ve probably noticed that fewer customers are paying with cash these days — and even fewer are fishing around for...
💸 The Hidden Cost of “Simplicity” in Payment Solutions: What Small Merchants Should Know
For small business owners, “simple” and “free” are powerful words. Free setup. Free POS hardware / software. Free...
Payment Credential Tokenization: A Complete Guide for Merchants
What is Payment Credential Tokenization? Payment credential tokenization is a security process that replaces sensitive...
Crypto Interchange
💳 You Might Be Taking Crypto Today — But Paying Visa/Mastercard Interchange for the Privilege There’s a quiet irony...
The Couch That Bought Itself (And Other Tales of Agentic AI)
Agentic AI will change the way you do business – there, I said it. No take-backs. Picture this: you fire up your...
Beyond the Card: How ACH is Transforming Retail Transactions
As the costs of processing credit card payments continue to rise, more merchants are seeking cost-effective...
Payments Steering – What it is, Why You Want to, and Key Considerations
In this article we will explore Payments Steering – a set of levers any merchant can pull to help reduce (and even...
The Coming AI Storm in Payments
My most rewarding work experiences have centered on collaboration among banks and among merchants. These experiences...
Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP)
Starting April 1, 2025, Visa consolidated its dispute and fraud monitoring programs (VDMP and VFMP) into the enhanced...
Your Credit Card Processor: who are you working with and how do they make money?
From the moment a customer makes a purchase until the transaction reaches a payment network (Visa, Mastercard, Amex or...
Pay-by-Bank – Past, Present and Future
The Payments Roundup team recently sat down with Alexandre (Alex) Gonthier,...
CMSPI State of the Industry Synopsis
The "State of the Industry Report" by CMSPI provides a comprehensive analysis of the current trends, challenges, and...
What Fees Do Merchants Pay When Accepting Credit Cards?
If you don’t look closely at your credit card processing statement, you should. When a merchant accepts credit card...
Can Merchants Effectively Deploy Credit Card Surcharging?
As increasing credit card processing fees continue to erode thin retail margins, more merchants are reluctantly...
Why Merchants Are Rethinking Payment-Based Discounts
Merchants have long used “discounting” as a tool to boost sales and build customer loyalty. In today’s evolving...
The Interchange Conundrum: A Novel Solution
Introduction For the last several decades, the notion that the U.S. payment system’s interchange structure is broken...