A leading payments industry news source for more than 17 years. Glenbrook curates the news and keeps you abreast of the important daily headlines in payments.
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June 24, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Makes a Move Toward Stablecoins, in an Effort to Boost Mainstream Use
MarketWatch
"Mastercard Inc. said it’s working to weave Fiserv Inc.’s FIUSD stablecoin into a range of its payment products. It’s another traditional financial firm jockeying for a seat at the table as cryptocurrencies become more mainstream."
On the wires
Chainlink and Mastercard Partner to Enable Over 3 Billion Cardholders to Purchase Crypto Directly Onchain
PR Newswire
"Chainlink and Mastercard are connecting the offchain payments world directly to the onchain DeFi world in close partnership with zerohash, Swapper Finance, Shift4 Payments, and XSwap, while leveraging the Uniswap protocol."
June 10, 2025
On the web
Onepay and Synchrony to Launch New Industry-Leading Credit Card Program With Walmart; Credit Card to Be Powered by Mastercard and Set to Go Live This Fall
Mastercard
"OnePay, a leading consumer fintech, and Synchrony announced a strategic partnership to exclusively power a new industry-leading credit card program with Walmart (NYSE: WMT). The credit card program is expected to launch this fall, with the experience embedded inside the OnePay app and powered by Mastercard’s global payments network, and will be made available to millions of Walmart customers and to consumers across the U.S."
June 5, 2025
On the wires
Mastercard and PayPal to Partner on Mastercard One Credential to Supercharge Choice at Checkout
Business Wire
"Mastercard and PayPal are teaming up to offer shoppers more choice and control over how they check out. Mastercard has innovated One Credential so that consumers can use a single credential that delivers multiple ways to pay and tailor their payment preferences. Now, Mastercard and PayPal will have the opportunity to codevelop new features utilizing Mastercard’s One Credential and bring these solutions to more consumers."
June 3, 2025
Top Post
One Year in, Mastercard’s Checkout Transformation Gains Ground Across Europe
Mastercard
"One year after announcing its vision to phase out manual card entry and drive 100% tokenisation, Mastercard is celebrating major strides across Europe, where a growing number of partners are adopting the technologies that underpin safer, smarter digital commerce. Nearly half of Mastercard e-commerce transactions are now tokenised in Europe. These tokenised transactions, including Secure Card on File (SCOF), Click to Pay, and digital wallets, have increased by over one third in the past year."
On the web
Deutsche Bank and Mastercard Partner to Power Merchant Solutions With Open Banking Payments
Mastercard
"Deutsche Bank and Mastercard are proud to announce a strategic partnership designed to accelerate the evolution of open banking and redefine the payment experience for merchants and consumers across Europe. The collaboration will elevate Deutsche Bank’s Merchant Solutions offering, particularly its Request to Pay (R2P) service, by introducing new levels of choice, flexibility, and efficiency with account-to-account based payments on Mastercard’s trusted open banking network."
May 29, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Unveils Small Business Navigator to Empower U.S. Entrepreneurs With Smarter, Safer Growth
Mastercard
"Mastercard launched Mastercard Small Business Navigator, a program designed to equip U.S. entrepreneurs with the tools, data and education they need to fuel and protect their passion and growth. Mastercard Small Business Navigator is a new curated offering of education, insights, protection, and planning tools to help entrepreneurs grow and thrive with confidence."
May 22, 2025
On the web
Mastercard and MoonPay Team Up to Mainstream Stablecoin Payments
Mastercard
"Mastercard and MoonPay will join forces to enable people and businesses to pay and be paid using stablecoins across global markets. Enterprises and fintechs will be able to leverage Mastercard branded cards linked to users’ stablecoin balances, empowering cardholders to spend their stablecoins, which will simultaneously be converted to fiat currency, at more than 150 million locations where Mastercard is accepted worldwide."
Visa and Mastercard Are Developing Artificial Intelligence ‘Agents’ to Spend Your Money for You
ABC
"Visa and Mastercard want to give artificial intelligence bots more control of Australians' bank cards, in a technological advancement they say could "revolutionise" shopping. The world's leading digital payment companies separately announced plans late last month to develop AI technology to streamline modern retail and allow autonomous agents to spend shoppers' money for them."
May 21, 2025
On the web
Millions of Consumers Could Get £70 After Mastercard Ruling
BBC
"Millions of shoppers could get up to £70 each after a tribunal approved a settlement in a lawsuit against Mastercard which stemmed from historic fees levied on businesses by the card provider. The decision comes after a long-running legal case going back almost a decade, brought forward by a former financial ombudsman. Walter Merricks argued that shoppers were charged higher prices after fees were wrongly levied on transactions made over a 15-year period between 1992 and 2008."
May 9, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Launches Agent Pay to Enable Secure AI-Powered Transactions
CDO Magazine
"Mastercard has introduced Agent Pay, an initiative aimed at embedding secure, intelligent payments into AI-driven experiences, advancing what it terms “agentic commerce”. The Agentic Payments Program, which includes Mastercard Agentic Tokens, builds on the company’s existing tokenization technology to allow AI agents to make personalized, secure, and seamless purchases on behalf of users."
May 8, 2025
On the web
Nuvei Offers Canadian Businesses Near Instant Pay-Outs via Mastercard Move
Mastercard
"Canadian fintech company Nuvei and Mastercard are collaborating to enable near instantaneous payout capabilities for businesses in Canada. Nuvei will leverage Mastercard Move’s money movement capabilities to facilitate payouts to a consumer’s Debit Mastercard or Reloadable Mastercard Prepaid card."
May 5, 2025
On the web
Suppliers and the Demands of the Digital Economy: A Powerful Case for Commercial Card Acceptance
Mastercard
"Until recently, business-to-business payments hadn’t changed much — dominated by bank or wire transfers and paper checks, they were slow, inefficient and prone to error. Now more financial decision-makers are realizing that the value of digital payments, including cards, extends far beyond the transaction itself, from streamlining reconciliation to optimizing working capital to improving transparency to reducing fraud."
May 1, 2025
On the web
CIBC Launches CIBC Adapta™ Mastercard®, the First Credit Card in Canada That Automatically Adapts to Spending Behaviour, Rewarding Cardholders More for Everyday Purchases
Mastercard
"CIBC announced its innovative new, no annual fee CIBC Adapta Mastercard, the first credit card in Canada that automatically determines the cardholder’s top three spend categories each month based on where they spend the most, and rewards them with 50% more points on those categories."
April 29, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Unveils Agent Pay, Pioneering Agentic Payments Technology to Power Commerce in the Age of AI
Mastercard
"Mastercard announced the launch of its Agentic Payments Program, Mastercard Agent Pay. The program introduces Mastercard Agentic Tokens, which build upon proven tokenization capabilities that today power global commerce solutions like mobile contactless payments, secure card-on-file, and Mastercard Payment Passkeys, as well as programmable payments like recurring expenses and subscriptions. Mastercard will collaborate with Microsoft on new use cases to scale agentic commerce, with other leading AI platforms to follow."
Mastercard and Corpay Launch Strategic Partnership in Cross-Border Payments
Mastercard
"Mastercard and Corpay today announced an expansion of their partnership to deliver an enhanced suite of corporate cross-border payment solutions. As a result, Mastercard’s financial institutions and their customers will now have simplified access to robust, end-to-end cross-border payments choices, including carded and non-carded solutions supporting all ticket sizes."
April 28, 2025
Top Post
Mastercard Unveils End-to-End Capabilities to Power Stablecoin Transactions – From Wallets to Checkouts
Business Wire
"Mastercard is advancing the future of payments, finance and technology with new, global end-to-end stablecoin acceptance and payments capabilities. With increasing global regulatory clarity, stablecoins are evolving from crypto trading tools to essential solutions that bring efficiency and programmability to payments, disbursements, and remittances. Harnessing this potential, Mastercard is ensuring that people and businesses can make and receive stablecoin payments – anytime, anywhere."
April 22, 2025
On the web
Mastercard: Start Path’s Emerging Fintech Program Welcomes 8 New Startups
Mastercard
"Eight startups join Start Path, Mastercard’s award-winning startup engagement program: LetMePark, UbiRider, Asistobe, it’s electric, Krowd, Bluespine, ipaymy and Dataiera. As the newest additions to Start Path’s global portfolio — which is comprised of more than 450 startups from over 60 countries — these companies will participate in a dedicated Emerging Fintech program focused on supporting innovation in high-growth sectors of payment technology."
April 9, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Outlines Plan to Combat Card Fraud in Australia
ChannelLife Australia
"Mastercard has announced its five-year plan to revolutionise payment methods in Australia, aiming to address the country's rising card-related fraud, which nearly reached AUD $1 billion in 2024. One of the core projects is the rollout of one-click biometric checkouts, which will eliminate the need for manual data entry, passwords, or one-time PINs."
April 2, 2025
On the web
Moneygram and Mastercard Collaborate to Advance Digital Money Movement
Mastercard
"MoneyGram and Mastercard have joined forces to advance digital money movement both domestically and across borders. MoneyGram is implementing Mastercard Move, Mastercard’s portfolio of money transfer solutions, providing its customers with enhanced access to fast, secure and near real-time payments."
April 1, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Is Modernizing Commercial Payments With Embedded Virtual Card Technology
Mastercard
"Mastercard is simplifying and scaling interactions among banks, platforms, and corporates alike by launching a new program to accelerate the adoption of virtual cards. This transformation is powered by the latest advances in Mastercard’s embedded Virtual Card Number (VCN) technology, which is delivering seamless and consumer-like commercial payments."
March 31, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Is Modernizing Commercial Payments With Embedded Virtual Card Technology
Mastercard
"Mastercard is simplifying and scaling interactions among banks, platforms, and corporates alike by launching a new program to accelerate the adoption of virtual cards. This transformation is powered by the latest advances in Mastercard’s embedded Virtual Card Number (VCN) technology, which is delivering seamless and consumer-like commercial payments. Beginning April 1st, banks leveraging Mastercard VCN technology can enable platform-partners that have enrolled in a new program to accelerate the use of embedded consumer-like experiences in commercial payments."
March 24, 2025
On the wires
Porter Airlines, BMO and Mastercard Launch First Canadian Credit Card Program Granting Immediate Airline Loyalty Benefits
Business Wire
"Porter Airlines, BMO and Mastercard are announcing the launch of two new BMO VIPorter Mastercard credit cards – creating the first and only travel credit card program in Canada that grants immediate frequent flyer benefits for cardholders in an airline’s loyalty program, while enabling accelerated travel rewards. More than 30,000 people have joined the pre-launch waitlist since the program was announced in January 2025."
March 17, 2025
On the web
Mastercard Open Banking Collaborates With Virgin Money on Account Aggregation
Open Banking Expo
"A new partnership between UK-based Virgin Money and Mastercard will enable the bank’s customers to view their credit card and current account balances and transactions from other banks in one place on the Virgin Money Credit Card app. Mastercard’s Open Banking technology is behind the account aggregation solution, which is designed to make it easier for Virgin Money customers to manage their finances."
March 14, 2025
On the web
Open Banking 2025 Thoughts & Trends
Finicity
"As we head into the new year, we are highlighting a few topics that are top of mind for Mastercard Open Banking, and how we see the Open Banking landscape evolving over the next 12-24 months."
March 13, 2025
On the web
Global Mastercard Outage Leaves Customers Unable to Make Payments
Mail Online
"Mastercard users all over the world reported being unable to make online or in-person payments early Sunday morning. Hundreds of people in as many as 65 countries - including the United States, Japan, Italy and Australia - all experienced a loss in services for a brief but troubling period, according to DownDetector, a website that catalogues real-time reports of issues and outages. Mastercard told Fox Business there was a glitch affecting transactions that has since been resolved."
Contactless 101: What You Need to Know About Tap and Go
Mastercard
"Tap and go — also known as contactless payments — account for more than two in every three in-person transactions globally on Mastercard’s network, up from one in three prior to the pandemic. That spike in adoption can be attributed to two major factors. First, shoppers and merchants were both seeking touch-free ways to transact amid the global pandemic."
March 11, 2025
On the web
Mastercard, Visa Pledge Vigilance Following Investigation Into Payments to Illegal Gambling Sites
CDC Gaming
"Mastercard and Visa are probing claims that illegal gambling websites facilitated deposits through their networks. An investigation into the sites found that Mastercard and Visa were failing to prevent their networks from being used for those transactions, The Guardian reported last week."
March 6, 2025
Top Post
Visa and Mastercard Face Regulatory ‘Remedies’ Over Lack of Competition [UK]
MSN
"The UK payments regulator has warned Visa and Mastercard it will introduce “remedies” to tackle a lack of competition and transparency in the card payments market that it said was costing British businesses millions of pounds a year. Visa and Mastercard, which account for 95 per cent of all debit and credit card payments in the UK, have increased the fees they charge merchants by 25 per cent above inflation since 2017, costing UK businesses £170mn, the Payment Systems Regulator said on Thursday."
February 25, 2025
On the web
New Mastercard Research: Consumers in Canada Worry About the Impact of Fraud on Financial Health
Mastercard
"In a constantly evolving digital world, fraud threats seem to be coming from every direction, making it more challenging for Canadians to feel and remain secure. Launching ahead of Fraud Prevention Month in March, Mastercard’s new nationwide survey reveals that despite 89 per cent of Canadians recognizing the growing threat of financial fraud to individual and community prosperity, only seven per cent prioritize prevention."
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