News about payments

Apple is reportedly preparing for a legal dispute with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which plans to publish consultation proposals next week on Apple's position in contactless payments. According to the Financial Times, the CMA plans to argue that Apple holds unfair control over the UK 'tap-to-pay' market and will call for iOS changes that let iPhone users choose an alternative payment service as default instead of Apple Pay. The proposals follow Apple's 'strategic market status' designation under new digital competition rules, which carries penalties of up to 10% of global turnover, and complaints from lenders and fintechs about the 0.15% fee on credit card transactions made through Apple Pay. Apple restricts third-party access to the iPhone's NFC chip, citing user privacy and fraud prevention, and two people briefed on the matter said the company is likely to appeal.

According to blockchain analytics firm Allium, stablecoin supply barely grew this year, reaching about $305 billion by end-September (up 0.4% year to date), while stablecoin payments hit $482 billion in the first nine months, up 45% from a year earlier. The number of payments rose 71% to over 1 billion, and stablecoin-linked card spending reached $3.9 billion, ten times the prior year's level, with purchases under $50 accounting for 84% of the increase in card transactions. This week, Mastercard launched its Global Money Platform with BVNK, Stripe partnered with Plasma on multi-currency cards, and Visa said Inyo Global became the first provider to use Visa Direct's stablecoin prefunding service commercially. Still, only $2.4 trillion, or 2.5%, of $97.9 trillion in raw stablecoin transfers was classified as end-user activity, and stablecoin cards accounted for just 0.03% of Visa's $4 trillion in second-quarter payment volume.

Mastercard is testing an AI-agent initiation probability score in the United States, part of its Agent Pay Trust Framework, designed to answer whether a transaction is being initiated by an AI agent at all, rather than only verifying who the agent is. The score draws on Mastercard Decision Intelligence, which processes roughly 143 billion transactions a year, and combines Skyfire's Know Your Agent identity technology with intent, behavioral and fraud signals, while Cloudflare provides web visibility into AI agent activity. The article cites a vendor-reported PYMNTS finding that 93% of merchants think AI providers should bear losses on failed transactions, while only 28% are willing to expose their full inventory to agents. It concludes that liability for erroneous agent purchases remains unresolved.