Section
Checkout, fraud, BNPL, and the plumbing of retail finance.
7 articles
The post-2024 regulatory tightening on buy-now-pay-later thinned the field. We map where the surviving players added retail value and where they just added friction.
A handful of merchants are running real stablecoin checkout pilots in 2026. The use cases are narrower than the pitch decks, but the savings on cross-border are not imaginary.
With the EU caps holding firm and the Visa-Mastercard settlement in the US under renewed scrutiny, the cost of card acceptance is diverging between the two markets in ways that matter for global retailers.
Tap-to-pay-on-phone removes the dongle for small merchants and adds optionality for mid-market. We look at adoption, the still-unsettled fee structure, and the categories where it's gaining real ground.
After the 2024 settlement rejection, the renegotiated version is moving through approval. We translate the latest draft into what it means for merchants' effective interchange.
As Klarna's public listing approaches, retailers offering BNPL at checkout are paying attention to disclosed take rates, default trends, and the leverage shift that comes with a public BNPL provider.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's interpretive rule pulled buy-now-pay-later under credit card protections. Retailers offering BNPL at checkout are quietly recalculating the cost of friction.