News Update

Live Nation Wins Pause on Breakup Discovery While It Tries to Undo Monopoly Verdict

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By Dave Clark1 day ago
Live Nation and Ticketmaster logo over an image of a concert crowd

Live Nation and Ticketmaster logo over an image of a concert crowd

Live Nation and Ticketmaster have won a temporary pause in breakup-related discovery while they try to undo the landmark antitrust verdict secured by state attorneys general, with the federal judge overseeing the case staying all remedies discovery until the company’s post-trial motions are resolved.

In an order dated June 3, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ruled that “any discovery relating to remedies will be stayed pending the Court’s disposition of the post-trial motions.” The order delays, at least for now, the states’ push to begin discovery into potential structural remedies that could include Ticketmaster divestiture, Live Nation amphitheater sell-offs, limits on exclusive contracts, and monetary relief.

The ruling comes after Live Nation and Ticketmaster asked the court to halt remedies discovery while they seek to wipe out or retry the jury verdict. In May 21 filings, the company asked Subramanian for judgment as a matter of law on all claims, or, if that fails, a new trial.

Those post-verdict filings amount to a sweeping attack on the trial result. The company argues that the jury got it wrong, the states got it wrong, the evidence was legally insufficient, the market definitions were defective, the damages testimony should not have been admitted, and the trial was infected by prejudicial evidence and flawed jury instructions.

RELATED: Live Nation Moves to Undo Monopoly Verdict, Delay Breakup Discovery

The company also asked the court to delay remedies discovery before the states could begin probing whether Ticketmaster should be broken away from Live Nation or whether Live Nation should be forced to sell off amphitheaters and unwind exclusive arrangements.

Subramanian has now granted the delay, though without ruling on the substance of Live Nation’s arguments attacking the verdict.

The court also deferred any decision on Live Nation’s proposed two-stage discovery process. Live Nation had asked that, if remedies discovery proceeds at all, it first be limited to the relief already obtained through the settlement between the company, the Department of Justice, and settling states. Only later, if necessary, would discovery expand to additional remedies sought by the non-settling states.

Subramanian declined to decide that issue now. “The Court defers any decision on defendants’ two-stage discovery proposal until the pending post-trial motions are resolved,” the order states. “At that point, if discovery is permitted, defendants may raise any objection, including to the sequencing of discovery.”

The order also notes that if any information or discovery is sought relating to Tunney Act proceedings tied to the DOJ settlement, an appropriate application may be filed under 15 U.S.C. Section 16.

The ruling is a procedural win for Live Nation because it slows the states’ effort to build the record for structural relief after their trial victory. It does not, however, decide whether the verdict will stand, whether Live Nation’s post-trial motions have merit, or whether breakup-related discovery will ultimately proceed.

The immediate effect is to freeze the remedies phase while the court considers Live Nation’s bid to erase or undermine the verdict.

The pause came after the plaintiff states urged the court to reject Live Nation’s sequencing proposal. In a May 27 letter, the states argued that Live Nation’s approach would unfairly limit them by default to discovery about relief negotiated by other parties before trial, rather than discovery tied to the jury verdict the states obtained after pressing the case forward.

“This is not consistent with the jury verdict that the Plaintiff States successfully obtained after a multi-week trial on the merits,” the states wrote. “The jury concluded that Live Nation’s anticompetitive conduct harmed artists, venues, and millions of American music fans. Justice should not be further delayed.”

The states also argued that Live Nation’s two-stage proposal would likely create more disputes, not fewer. Many of the states’ proposed discovery areas, they said, relate both to the adequacy of the DOJ settlement and to additional remedies the states may seek. Splitting discovery into phases, they argued, would invite fights over whether each request related to the settlement, broader remedies, or both.

Live Nation had framed the same discovery very differently. In its own letter, the company called the states’ proposed requests an “extraordinarily broad swath of material” covering multiple business units, updated transaction-level data, Ticketmaster and amphitheater divestiture feasibility, non-party discovery, and financial records tied to damages, civil penalties, disgorgement, and restitution.

The company argued that responding to those requests before the court resolves potentially dispositive post-trial motions would impose an enormous burden across “virtually every aspect” of its business.

Subramanian’s order gives Live Nation the stay it sought, at least as to remedies discovery. The states’ broader request to move forward immediately with discovery into structural remedies is now on hold until after the court rules on the pending post-trial motions.

That makes the upcoming motion rulings even more consequential. If Live Nation succeeds, the verdict could be narrowed, retried, or wiped out. If the states prevail, the court will then have to decide whether and how remedies discovery proceeds — including whether Live Nation can renew objections to the scope and sequencing of that discovery.

The pause also prolongs the gap between the states’ vision of the case and Live Nation’s. For the states, the jury verdict should launch a structural remedies process aimed at restoring competition in ticketing, promotion, and venue markets. For Live Nation, the verdict remains legally vulnerable, and breakup discovery should not proceed while the company argues that the trial result should not stand at all.

The dispute is part of the increasingly complicated post-verdict landscape in the Live Nation/Ticketmaster antitrust case. The DOJ settlement remains subject to Tunney Act review, while the non-settling states are pursuing remedies they say must go beyond another conduct-based settlement. Those potential remedies include Ticketmaster divestiture, Live Nation venue sell-offs, restrictions on exclusive ticketing and booking practices, damages, civil penalties, disgorgement, and restitution.

For now, however, the breakup fight has been slowed. Live Nation’s effort to undo the verdict will come first.

News Update

Mastercard Adds Settlement Windows Beyond Business Days

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John Stewart June 3, 2026 Competitive Strategies, Digital Currency, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Wallets, Real-time Payments, Transaction Processing

Mastercard announced early Wednesday it plans to introduce settlement options including weekends, holidays, and at times during the day of the transaction. The new settlement windows will apply to both card-based fiat transactions and those involving cards linked to regulated stablecoins, the network said.

The move would expand availability beyond traditional business-day settlement and comes as both Mastercard and Visa have deepened their capabilities in on-chain card settlement stemming from stablecoin-backed cards. Mastercard alone runs more than 100 card programs globally that link to stablecoins and moved deeper into the digital currency with its agreement in March to acquire BVNK, a London-based stablecoin platform, for $1.8 billion.

“We’re seeing growing interest from banks, fintechs, and partners, particularly for use cases that benefit from faster, more flexible and more transparent settlement (e.g., cross-border flows, treasury and payouts),” a Mastercard spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News by email. “More broadly, we already support a broad and growing set of crypto-linked card programs globally (more than 120 programs globally), working with exchanges, fintechs, and financial institutions to bring digital assets into everyday payments. We’re not sharing specific volumes or card figures at this stage.”

Information was not immediately available regarding whether new fees would apply to these new settlement windows. Mastercard said the new schedule will in particular embrace cards backed by regulated stablecoins such as Circle’s USDC, and those issued by Paxos, Ripple, and SoFi. Financial institutions and processors supporting the program include ARQ, CBW Bank, Cross River Bank, Lead Bank, and Nuvei, according to Mastercard.

“This is a major step forward in realizing the potential of stablecoins for retail payments,” says Aaron McPherson, principal at AFM Consulting LLC. He cautions, however, that Mastercard’s move “does have the side effect of taking the momentum away from direct stablecoin transactions, which is probably one of Mastercard’s goals. They do not want to see a rival set of rails compete with cards.”

The network said the new settlement windows will become available over time as more partners and stablecoins are added. “By introducing intraday and weekend on settlement options across our global network, we’re expanding how partners manage liquidity and operate in an always-on digital economy,”  says Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president, blockchain and digital assets, at Mastercard, in a statement.

 

News Update

NMI Buys Fee Navigator As Merchant Pricing Gets Hot

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NMI Buys Fee Navigator As Merchant Pricing Gets Hot

John Stewart June 2, 2026 Acquiring, Competitive Strategies, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, Point-of-sale, Transaction Processing

NMI announced early Tuesday it has acquired Fee Navigator, a provider of analysis for acquirers looking to price services for merchants. Terms were not disclosed.

Schaumburg, Ill.-based NMI says the deal brings merchant-pricing capabilities supported by AI, adding to an arsenal of services the processor offers to independent sales organizations, independent software vendors, and agents that sell payments processing to small and medium-size sellers. The move comes at a time when card-acceptance costs have grown into a sore point for many merchants, leading to pressure on sales agents and their processors to support pricing decisions with more precise analytics.

Fee Navigator, based in Philadelphia and founded seven years ago, says joining NMI will broaden its prospect base among ISOs and ISVs as these agents work to make accurate pricing decisions. “Merchant pricing has always been one of the hardest parts of payments to get right,” notes Adrian Talapan, chief executive and cofounder of Fee Navigator, in a statement.

NMI’s deal for Fee Navigator follows on the heels of its acquisition last month of Dwolla, a Des Moines, Iowa-based processor, though the two moves are of a piece, according to Steve Pinado, NMI’s chief executive. “With Dwolla, we expanded the ways our partners can move money. With Fee Navigator, we are adding AI-powered intelligence that helps them price, optimize, and grow their business,” he says in a statement. Terms of the Dwolla acquisition were also not released.

Pinado indicates the growing importance of pricing analytics as merchant discontent over acceptance fees grows. “Merchant pricing has become increasingly important as card acceptance costs continue to rise,” he says in a statement.

Some observers also see other connections that may have led to the deal for Fee Navigator so soon after the Dwolla acquisition. “To me, it tracks perfectly,” notes Cliff Gray, principal at Gray Consulting Ventures LLC. “NMI acquires Dwolla to broaden their alternative payments options, then acquires and leverages Fee Navigator to optimize pricing recommendations and margin opportunities, especially to low-cost alternatives like Dwolla.”

The deal will also ease and quicken pricing decisions in a highly competitive merchant-processing market, observers say. “Fee Navigator will give [NMI] something most processors, gateways, and embedded-payments platforms don’t have, automated pricing intelligence and margin analytics,” says Eric Grover, principal at the consultancy Intrepid Ventures.

Private-equity backed NMI processes for 1.2 million merchants, supporting online, in-app, in-store, and mobile payments, the company says. Fee Navigator makes recommendations to clients based on its analysis of merchant pricing, the company says.

News Update

The Illinois IFPA Implementation Date Is Extended Again

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The Illinois IFPA Implementation Date Is Extended Again

Kevin Woodward June 1, 2026 Acquiring, Law and Regulation, Point-of-sale, Pricing, Transaction Processing

A last-minute budget move will see the implementation date for the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act pushed back a year, to July 1, 2027.

Originally scheduled to become law Monday, the IFPA would have seen interchange on sales tax and tips prohibited. How it would have been implemented has been a sticking point for both advocates and detractors.

The delay is expected to be signed by Governor JB Pritzker as part of the state’s 2027 budget. The IFPA was originally scheduled for implementation July 1, 2025, but was delayed for a year.

On the payments side, the delay is a sign the act is flawed. “This second delay reflects the reality that the law was flawed from the beginning,” Scott Talbott, executive vice president of the Electronic Transactions Association, tells Digital Transactions News via email. “With the OCC ruling that the IFPA is preempted for national banks, it should be repealed.” In April the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency filed a notice about a rule to preempt the IFPA, Digital Transactions News reported.

Other payments advocates also supported the extension.

“The Illinois General Assembly’s extension of the Interchange Fee Prohibition Act’s effective date is a win for consumers and credit unions,” says Scott Simpson, president and chief executive of trade association America’s Credit Unions. “However, ongoing litigation and the recent rules from the OCC and NCUA reinforce that more action is needed. Even with an extension, if the law takes effect, Illinois’s state-chartered credit unions and community banks will be at a disadvantage as federal institutions are preempted.”

The Electronic Payments Coalition also says it appreciated the delay. “At the same time, this latest delay is yet another acknowledgment that lawmakers rushed through a deeply flawed law without fully understanding the consequences. Unfortunately for Illinois consumers, small businesses, community banks, and credit unions, delaying the chaos is not the same as fixing it. The only real solution is full repeal,” Richard Hunt, EPC executive chairman, says in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Merchant Payments Coalition, which has advocated for the measure, says the delay was unfortunate. “The law ought to go into effect at this point,” Doug Kantor, an executive committee member of the MPC, tells Digital Transactions News.

“Understand that the banks are throwing around misinformation that people get nervous about,” Kantor says. “The only issue in Illinois is the credit card industry is dragging its feet and tried to throw obstacles at it. We look forward to the law eventually going into effect.”

The National Retail Federation also is disappointed with the delay. “We share in the disappointment,” says Dylan Jeon, vice president of NRF government relations. “We look forward to picking this back up next year.” In the meantime, the NRF’s focus will be on ongoing litigation, he says.

 

News Update

Fiserv Signs up for Experian Link’s Debit Card Ownership Checker

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Fiserv Signs up for Experian Link’s Debit Card Ownership Checker

Kevin Woodward May 27, 2026 Competitive Strategies, Debit Cards, E-Commerce, Fraud & Security, Mobile Commerce

Experian plc, most known among consumers as a credit-reporting agency, says it is collaborating with processor Fiserv Inc. on Experian Link, a service to make it easier for merchants to verify a consumer’s identity with debit card ownership data.

Announced Wednesday, the cooperative endeavor will see Fiserv’s proprietary debit card data integrated into Experian Link, and, when combined with Experian’s identity and fraud data, will help ensure a consumer’s identity. Experian Link launched in 2022 and Experian says it’s helped increase auto-approval rates by up to 10% for users.

Specifically, Experian Link will use Fiserv’s VerifyNow Advantage program to gain access to bank-account and debit card ownership data in real-time. Experian says Fiserv is the first debit data partner to make the Experian Link integration. VerifyNow is a Fiserv program to identify and authenticate consumer account owners and to verify account status in real-time.

“As [artificial intelligence] accelerates the speed and sophistication of fraud, merchants need precise, instant verification that confirms the customer behind a payment is truly who they say they are without introducing added friction,” Kathleen Peters, Experian North America chief innovation officer for fraud and identity, says in a statement. Experian is based in Dublin.

The expectation is that the integration will make it easier for users of Experian Link to reduce revenue loss from false declines. The service ties a consumer’s digital identity to the credit or debit card being presented, which provides “a more accurate, real-time view of whether a customer truly owns the card presented online,” Experian says. “With the new Fiserv collaboration enabling instant debit card ownership verification, Experian Link now gives merchants a more complete, data‑driven view of payment trustworthiness across both credit and debit card transactions.”

News Update

Fraud and Scam Initiators Are Adapting, Again, Visa Says

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Fraud and Scam Initiators Are Adapting, Again, Visa Says

Kevin Woodward May 22, 2026 Competitive Strategies, Credit Cards, Debit Cards, E-Commerce, Fraud & Security, Point-of-sale

Fraud and scam bad actors are adapting again to changes in technology and consumer behavior, but so, too, are organizations charged with preventing their misdeeds. In its “Spring 2026 Biannual Threats Report,” Visa Inc. points to four shifts in the second half of 2025 as fundamentally changing how criminals interact with consumers.

Released Thursday, the report shows on a global scale that controls are helping improve outcomes for those caught up in fraud and scams even as attack volume rises, Visa says. Other changes are that scams are the primary source of consumer harm and artificial intelligence is speeding up both the attack and defense aspects. Fourth, the economics of ransomware, though still prevalent, are changing.

Visa data shows that fraud at the device-token level decreased 9.6% in the latter half of 2025 compared to the second half of 2024, while enumeration —a reconnaissance stage for criminals to verify stolen data—dropped 16% in the same period.

The implication from this is that criminals are moving toward vectors like consumers and third-party dependencies, Visa says. “The most important question is no longer ‘how much fraud occurred,’ but ‘where is fraud migrating–and how quickly?’” Visa’s report says.

The second notable shift, the ascendancy of scams, cannot be solved solely with controls at the authorization layer, Visa says. To counter this, a multi-element response is needed, it says. Scams are when criminals trick a consumer into willingly sending them money, providing them with payment details, or providing access to their accounts, as defined by Wells Fargo.

“When the user behaves ‘legitimately’ from a transaction perspective, scam defense becomes a combined challenge of identity verification, intent assessment, and manipulation detection—often requiring coordinated action beyond a single institution,” Visa says.

Just as AI is weaving itself into productive uses, it is being used for other less-than-legal ones, too. Visa says AI is shortening the fraud cycle for both sides, the attackers and defenders.

Criminals are using AI to create more personalized and convincing attacks they can automate at scale, while organizations trying to halt that activity are able to use AI to spot anomalies sooner than without AI, stop attacks before they reach consumers or merchants, and make their identification of attacks more precise, Visa says.

Thus, “Organizations that rely on manual, siloed review models are structurally disadvantaged. The advantage belongs to those that can act in real time, coordinate across partners quickly, and automate the detect-triage response lifecycle,” Visa says.

The fourth shift, more ransomware with changing economics, may be a result that organizations are being more resilient when under threat and increasingly recognizing that paying the extortionist does not reliably  prevent a data release, Visa says.

Ransomware is becoming more of a recovery issue, not just a prevention problem, it says. Visa says this suggests a shift in approach when dealing with ransomware to treating business continuity and recovery as primary security controls instead of afterthoughts.

News Update

Former AGs Say Live Nation Verdict Should Spur TICKET Act, Ticket Transfer Reforms

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Former AGs Say Live Nation Verdict Should Spur TICKET Act, Ticket Transfer Reforms

By Dave Clark8 minutes ago
A fan holds their mobile phone up to a scanner outside of an event, illustrating the Ticketmaster Safetix system

A fan holds their mobile phone up to a scanner outside of an event, illustrating the Ticketmaster Safetix system

A bipartisan op-ed argues the Ticketmaster monopoly ruling should be a starting point for federal and state action, as lawmakers scrutinize the DOJ settlement and consumer advocates press for open ticket transferability.

A bipartisan pair of former state attorneys general is urging lawmakers and state enforcers to treat the recent Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly verdict not as the end of the ticketing reform fight, but as a springboard for stronger consumer protections.

Writing in The Hill, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, and former Maine Attorney General Drew Ketterer, a Democrat, argued that the verdict gives states and Congress leverage to pursue reforms that go beyond damages or delayed court remedies. Their prescription includes passage of the TICKET Act, protections for consumers’ ability to transfer and resell tickets on the platform of their choice, and settlement terms that open the ticketing market to more competition.

The op-ed comes as the Live Nation/Ticketmaster case has entered a sprawling post-verdict phase, with state plaintiffs seeking remedies after a jury found the company liable for monopolization while the federal court separately reviews the Trump administration’s settlement with the company under the Tunney Act.

That settlement drama was the focus of a Monday bicameral forum led by Rep. Jamie Raskin and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, where lawmakers, state enforcers, independent venue operators, artists, and antitrust experts argued that the jury verdict should be followed by structural changes to Live Nation’s business rather than a narrow conduct settlement.

RELATED: Lawmakers, Witnesses Dissect “Corrupt” Live Nation Settlement at Hearing; Press for Breakup

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose office remained in the case after DOJ agreed to settle, told the forum that behavioral remedies had proven inadequate and that the states would seek structural relief. TicketNews previously reported that Bonta said potential remedies could include divestiture of Ticketmaster, a broader breakup of Live Nation’s vertically integrated business, or separation of the company’s venue and artist-management operations.

The forum underscored a key point for ticketing policy: there is now visible appetite at the federal level not only for transparency legislation, but also for tougher scrutiny of antitrust settlements that leave dominant market structures intact.

The TICKET Act remains the most immediate legislative vehicle. The bill passed the House last year by a 409-15 vote and is now on the Senate calendar. It would require ticket sellers and resale marketplaces to display the total ticket price at the beginning of the purchasing process, prohibit speculative ticket sales by sellers who do not have possession of the tickets, require refunds for canceled or significantly postponed events, and give the Federal Trade Commission enforcement authority.

Cuccinelli and Ketterer argued that those transparency provisions are important, but insufficient. In their view, lawmakers and state plaintiffs should also address the structural question at the center of the Live Nation/Ticketmaster fight: whether consumers actually control the tickets they purchase, or whether the primary seller and event rights-holder can dictate where, when, and whether those tickets can be transferred or resold.

That question is an essential one for true consumer choice in ticketing and ticket resale. Ticketmaster’s SafeTix system, the company’s mobile-only rotating-barcode technology, has been promoted by the company as an anti-fraud tool, but the truth is that it has largely served the purpose of creating a walled garden – where rights holders and Ticketmaster have ultimate control over a ticket and its use after purchase.

The DOJ’s under President Biden illustrated this point in its initial amended complaint in the lawsuit that eventually led to the guitly verdict last month. It argued that the technology was designed to allow Ticketmaster protect its dominant primary-ticketing position, strengthen its resale position, and make it more difficult for fans to use rival resale platforms.

RELATED: Ticketmaster’s SafeTix System Takes Central Role in DOJ’s Monopoly Lawsuit

TicketNews has reported for years that dynamic barcodes and other restricted-transfer systems can effectively lock fans into the ticketing platform chosen by the original seller. Once a ticket is confined inside a proprietary app, consumers may be able to use, transfer, or resell it only under the rules set by that platform.

For consumer advocates, that makes transferability a core competition issue rather than a secondary feature of ticketing convenience. A ticket that cannot be freely transferred is less like property purchased by a fan and more like conditional access controlled by the seller, enabling the restriction of use, sale, resale, or transfer at their discretion.

That distinction is especially important as Live Nation has simultaneously supported resale price caps. The company has argued that caps would address fan frustration over high secondary-market prices, speculative listings, and bot-driven purchasing. Critics counter that resale caps, if imposed without equivalent limits on primary-market pricing, dynamic pricing, platinum pricing, holdbacks, and transfer restrictions, could eliminate resale competition while leaving Live Nation/Ticketmaster’s primary-market power intact.

That concern was also at the center of a January Senate Commerce hearing, where lawmakers pressed Live Nation over whether resale restrictions and price caps could leave fans with fewer options. As TicketNews reported then, a cap that limits what consumers can recover on resale, while leaving primary-market prices unrestricted, can box fans into a market controlled by the same company that sold them the ticket in the first place.

Consumer-choice groups have also argued that resale competition can benefit fans when tickets fall below face value. A 2025 report found that resale markets saved fans hundreds of millions of dollars in 2024, while polling cited in the report found broad public support for the right to resell or give away tickets after purchase.

The result is a policy fight with several overlapping tracks. Congress is weighing the TICKET Act and related antitrust-settlement reforms. The court is reviewing the DOJ settlement under the Tunney Act. State plaintiffs are seeking remedies after winning at trial. And consumer advocates are pressing lawmakers to make sure that reform does not stop at all-in pricing, but also includes free transferability and genuine resale competition.

RELATED: Live Nation Seeks to Pause Breakup Fight Until After Tunney Act Settlement Review

Live Nation has rejected the monopoly framing and has argued that breaking up the company would not solve the underlying causes of high ticket prices, which it attributes largely to demand, artist pricing decisions, and broader industry dynamics. The company has also said it supports certain ticketing reforms, including resale-focused changes, while continuing to challenge the verdict and the push for structural remedies.

But the Cuccinelli-Ketterer op-ed reflects a growing view among critics of the company that the verdict has changed the political and legal posture of the debate. If Live Nation/Ticketmaster has already been found liable for monopolization, they argue, the next question is not whether ticketing reform is warranted, but what kind of reform will actually reduce the company’s control over fans, venues, artists, and rival marketplaces.

That is where the TICKET Act and transferability protections intersect. All-in pricing would make ticket costs clearer. Refund guarantees would give consumers baseline protections when events are canceled or postponed. But open transferability would address a different problem: whether fans can choose where to sell, give away, or otherwise transfer the tickets they already bought.

The monopoly verdict opened the door to that broader conversation. The fight now is over whether lawmakers and courts walk through it.

News Update

Digital Wallets Bolster Paysafe’s First-Quarter Results

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Digital Wallets Bolster Paysafe’s First-Quarter Results

John Stewart May 13, 2026 Acquiring, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, Point-of-sale, Transaction Processing

The processor Paysafe Ltd. early Wednesday reported it processed $43.9 billion in volume in the March quarter, a 10% improvement over the same period last year, with 19% growth in the company’s digital-wallet segment outpacing the much larger merchant-solutions unit, which posted an 8% jump, to $37.2 billion.

Paysafe has pinned much hope on a new digital wallet, dubbed Paysafe Wallet, which the company said posted “record monthly actives” in the quarter. Lately, the company said it has been promoting the new wallet through campaigns aimed at encouraging user engagement. The wallet unit as a whole generated $216.3 million in revenue for the quarter, a 15% rise year-over-year.

Other niches producing double-digit increases in revenue include e-commerce, aided by the Paysafe’s longstanding position in casino processing, the company reported. Revenue from i-Gaming grew 28% in the quarter, year-on-year, helping to drive a 17% revenue jump in e-commerce revenue. In this segment, the company launched a pay-with-crypto option for U.S. players during the quarter, allowing them to make deposits in stablecoins or other cryptocurrencies. This option is supported by MoonPay.

In the small-business category, Paysafe reported it eked out a 2% increase in revenue for the quarter.

The company’s revenue for the quarter totaled $442.7 million, rising 10% from the same period last year Reported gross profit came to $250 million, led by the digital-wallet segment, at $151.4 million. That total for the company represents a 10% improvement over the same quarter last year.

News Update

With Worldpay Onboard, Global Payments Focuses on Its Genius POS Tech

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With Worldpay Onboard, Global Payments Focuses on Its Genius POS Tech

John Stewart May 6, 2026 Acquiring, Competitive Strategies, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, Point-of-sale, Transaction Processing

Global Payments Inc. spent most of last year launching its Genius point-of-sale platform, and now its focus is on reaping a return on that substantial investment, part of a $1-billion technology program the Atlanta-based processor embarked on earlier this year. That initiative also comes as the company focuses on integrating Worldpay, a massive processor it acquired in January from FIS Inc. for $22.7 billion.

Early Wednesday, the company’s top executives said progress has been encouraging on both of these fronts. Having launched Genius for Restaurants a year ago, followed by Genius for Retail in June and Genius for Enterprise in September, Global’s most recent product on that platform is a mobile version, which Global chief executive Cameron Bready said has attracted 500 locations in less than 60 days.

“We continue to see strong momentum for Genius, ” he told equity analysts on a call to discuss Global’s March-quarter results. “Bookings have nearly doubled year-over-year. Clients are willing to pay for its differentiated capabilities.” He said interest has also developed among financial institutions, where sales of the platform is now a “key priority” and an initiative set to start next year.

Though Global does not break out results for Genius, Bready said sales in the March quarter nearly doubled the performance seen early last year. Sales so far have been encouraging enough for the technology to be “a central pillar of our growth strategy,” Bready said. Now, with Genius Mobile as the latest salient, he said Global is “very bullish” about Genius’s “ability to scale from the smallest merchant to enterprises.” Small merchants will likely become a bigger pool of prospects as Global now moves to sell Genius through the independent sales organization channel.

Another major initiative at Global, as it is at most payments platforms, is adoption of artificial intelligence technology, a plan that embraces Genius. “We have a plan to embed AI more deeply in our products. Genius is an example,” Bready said, though he backed off saying more about the matter, noting that announcements are forthcoming. “On agentic commerce, it’s very nascent,” he said. “We’re obviously building all the connective tissue to allow agentic commerce to grow at scale.” At the same time, the company is working out “what platforms to grow, and what to shut down,” he added.

The integration of Worldpay will likely boost Genius sales further, Bready said. For all of Worldpay’s heft and economies of scale, “the bigger opportunity with Worldpay in the U.S. is to unlock their financial-institution channel and ISO channel,” he said.

For the quarter, Global reported $2.86 billion in net revenue, up 29.5% from a year ago, with adjusted operating income rising 22.1% to $1.14 billion. Net income, at just shy of $809 million, rose 21.6%

News Update

Three Months In, the New PayPal CEO Sparks a Sweeping Reorganization

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Three Months In, the New PayPal CEO Sparks a Sweeping Reorganization

Kevin Woodward April 30, 2026 Acquiring, Competitive Strategies, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Wallets, Person-to-Person Payments, Point-of-sale, Transaction Processing

Barely three months since taking over the top spot at PayPal Holdings Inc., Enrique Lores is heading up a reorganization of the venerable payments company.

Announced late Wednesday following a CNBC report earlier in the day, PayPal says it will migrate to a three-business operating model. The three are checkout and PayPal, consumer financial services and Venmo, and crypto and payment services.

Lores says the reorganization is part of a plan to “recommit to our fundamentals” and get closer to consumers. Lores was chief executive at computer giant HP Inc. for six years before coming to PayPal.

The Venmo unit will tap into Venmo’s momentum, Lores says, and expand into a broader consumer financial-services platform. The PayPal unit will bring the consumer and merchant ecosystems under what he calls a unified strategy, while the crypto and payment-services component will bring operations like Braintree, which PayPal acquired in 2013, small-business processing, and cryptocurrency efforts under one roof. PayPal acquired Venmo with its Braintree acquisition.

These moves come as PayPal still has strong assets to use.

“PayPal still has a stable of strong assets, but many of those assets no longer clearly translate into value for either their merchants or consumers,” says James Wester, co-head of payments and research director for technology and infrastructure at Javelin Strategy & Research.

“What’s more, the payments market is increasingly competitive, so any value needs to be better than what consumers and merchants can find elsewhere,” Wester says in an email to Digital Transactions News. “Giving the reorganized units clearer mandates should help with that, but the new structure will need to lead to better product decisions. A focus on trust, simplicity, and good products were what made PayPal so important to begin with. Any reorganization should be judged by whether it helps PayPal get back to that mindset.”

The reorganization also is an admission of what the market has known for years, says Stewart Watterson, strategic advisor at Datos Insights, that running checkout, Venmo, and payments infrastructure under one undifferentiated roof was limiting all three.

The new structure gives each business a clear identity and someone accountable for it. “Venmo finally gets a real shot at becoming a consumer financial services platform,” Watterson says. “The crypto unit gets a credible infrastructure frame rather than a marketing badge.”

In its Feb. 3 fourth-quarter earnings call, led by then interim chief executive Jamie S. Miller, PayPal cited Venmo as a product that was doing well. Not including interest income, Venmo’s 2025 revenue reached $1.7 billion, a 20% increase from 2024, Miller said.

PayPal also noted its enterprise-payments business had seven consecutive quarters of profitable growth and its buy now, pay later product generated more than $40 billion in total payment volume last year, another 20% increase.

PayPal’s online branded-checkout efforts, which launched in 2023 under then CEO Alex Chriss, were too optimistic, Miller said. “We’ve reimagined a product that had been stagnant and underinvested in for years, creating a new value proposition for merchants and consumers. But we were too optimistic about how quickly we could drive change and customer adoption across a massive global user base. The results are not yet where we expected them or want them to be,” Miller said, according to a transcript provided by PayPal.

PayPal also made several personnel moves Wednesday. Heading checkout solutions and PayPal is Frank Keller, who had been general manager of its large enterprise and merchant-platform group. Alexis Sowa, listed as senior vice president and general manager of Venmo on her LinkedIn profile, will lead the Venmo and consumer financial services line on an interim basis. Jeff Pomeroy will be the interim head of the payment services and crypto business.

PayPal also appointed Anshu Bhardwaj, whose LinkedIn profile listed her as senior vice president of PayPal engineering, to the chief AI transformation and simplification officer role. Antonio Lucio, whose LinkedIn profile listed a previous position of executive vice president, chief of marketing, and corporate affairs officer at HP Inc., joins PayPal as chief marketing and corporate affairs officer.