The Payments Blog

TL;DR Visa’s new Acquirer Embedded Payment charge is 0.10%, with no per-item fee, on qualifying embedded Visa commercial virtual card transactions. It is billed to the acquirer, not directly to the paying business, but may reach merchants through pass-through pricing, revised rates or separate fees. The charge prices the software-embedded payment model, not simply the use of a commercial card. Classification and transaction mix will determine exposure. Mastercard’s new Trans

TL;DR Newline by Fifth Third and Visa say eligible fintechs can offer Visa corporate cards for approved business use cases in more than 40 countries through Visa’s Multinational Program (MNP). The strategic shift is embedded issuing: fintechs can manage approved programmes through their existing Newline relationship, rather than building a separate issuing arrangement in every market. MNP cards are issued for local use in the cardholder’s country, with transactions authorise

TL;DR Visa, BILL and Billtrust have launched a live pilot processing real invoice payments through supplier portals using AI agents. The model links an authenticated agent and tokenised payment credentials to buyer-approved instructions, while the supplier portal retains its acceptance controls. B2B invoice payments are a compelling first use case: the buyer authorises the payment, the supplier wants faster cash flow, and both sides have an incentive to participate. The pilo

TL;DR Visa and Mesh announced a partnership to let people pay from eligible crypto, stablecoin and fiat balances through a Visa credential provisioned behind the scenes. At the checkout, the merchant receives a standard Visa payment: no new terminal, hardware or checkout workflow is required. The strategic change is on the wallet and platform side, where Mesh handles onboarding, KYC, funding and conversion. This is an announcement, not a live product launch. Supported platfo

TL;DR: Money20/20 USA opens in Las Vegas today with a pointed question: how should banks and merchants verify an AI agent acting for a person? The emerging answer, Know Your Agent (KYA), links agent requests to an identifiable operator and an authorised user. But the industry has no single standard. Visa, Mastercard, Skyfire and Google are advancing distinct approaches, while an open KYA stack is also taking shape. Cryptographic proof is stronger than trusting a bearer token

TL;DR: Surcharging ended on 1 October 2026 across eftpos, Mastercard, Visa, American Express and UnionPay, but the cost of accepting payments remains. Merchants should map costs by rail and channel, actively route eligible debit transactions, understand what mobile wallets do, and do not, cost them, rework all-in pricing, and prepare for a new public fee scoreboard. The card-rewards changes happening alongside the reform may also change which cards customers use, affecting a

TL;DR: The important stablecoin story this week is not another pilot: it is the move into commercial products. Mastercard and BVNK launched a multi-money platform, Visa Direct brought USDC prefunding into production, Marqeta and Coinbase announced stablecoin-backed cards, and Stripe expanded stablecoin card issuing and payouts. Each partnership addresses a different layer of payments infrastructure. For merchants, card acceptance can remain familiar; for platforms and cross-b

TL;DR Visa and Mastercard are asking a federal judge to grant final approval of their long-running merchant swipe-fee settlement. The hearing is set for 16 November 2026; the agreement is not yet finally approved. Its bigger strategic change may be new merchant options to surcharge, discount or decline some higher-cost cards. The US is moving towards more card steering, while Australia’s surcharge ban has removed that tool from merchants. The settlement matters because it ch