by Matt Rej
March was another busy month in the payment space. I’ve rounded up the biggest headlines, news stories, and updates that you should be paying attention to. Here’s a preview of what’s below:
- Rate increases
- Card network updates
- Pending interchange legislation
- New payment products
Let’s dive in.
Global Payments Rate Increase
Global Payments notified merchants of another rate increase that will apply to transactions starting in April.
The notice was vague and didn’t specify the exact amounts of the increase. So you’ll need to keep a close eye on your statements to see how your transactions were impacted.
This is a classic example of a processor hiding behind network updates to increase pricing.
The majority of Global’s notice focused on changes at the card network level. But if you look closely at what they sent you, you’ll see that Global also says that discount fees, auth fees, and per-item fees may be affected.
Visa Interchange Updates
Visa is making several interchange-level adjustments that go into effect next month. The most significant ones include:
- Digital Commerce Service fee increase
- New Card Present Token Fees
- New pricing for Integrity Risk Fee on crypto transactions
- Increase to System Integrity Fee for excessive cross-border authorization retries
- CVV2 value updates (descriptors and retiring values)
- CEDP Level 2 sunsetting
- New Digital Commerce Authentication Program
- CE3.0 expansion
Check out our 2026 interchange updates page for the exact dates in April that these go into effect, plus a more detailed explanation of each.
New Interchange Programs from American Express
Amex announced three new interchange programs that go into effect on 4/17/26:
- T&E Micro Ticket
- T&E Small Ticket
- Other Micro Ticket
Shift4 Promotes Three Global Blue Executives
Earlier this month, Shift4 announced leadership changes for Global Blue:
- Pier Francesco Nervini – President International Division
- Filippos Mintiloglitis – Chief Accounting Officer
- Timothy Goodwin – Chief Payments Officer
I’ve been following these executive hires or promotions more recently in recent years, as these changes can have a direct impact on merchant fees depending on the moves these positions decide to make.
I’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on Timothy Goodwin, as he’s now in charge of all the company’s processing platforms, gateway, and payment technology.
Visa Continues Agentic Commerce Efforts
Visa has made it clear that they want to be a leader who paves the way for agentic commerce. Their moves this month echo this sentiment.
First, they launched “Agentic Ready” in Europe. The first stage of this launch is structured to focus on issuer readiness and builds on top of Visa Intelligence Commerce. It’s part of a planned global rollout that will be implemented in stages. Read more.
Second, Visa partnered with Stripe to support card-based payments for trusted autonomous agents in Tempo Machine Payments Protocol (MPP). Read more.
Rectangle Health Payment Bridge Restored
Rectangle Health’s Bridge Payments 3.0 was finally restored in mid-March after being down for more than a month.
This was the result of a February 6th ransomware attack on BridgePay’s gateway. Systems were partially restored on March 10th, and fully operational on March 16th, making this the longest payment processing outage in history.
Read More: How the Rectangle Health Outage Offers Rare Negotiating Opportunity
Elavon Appoints New CEO
In a March 18th press release, Elavon announced that Wally Mlynarski will be the company’s new CEO.
What makes this hire particularly interesting is the fact that Mlynarski was poached from a rival. He was leading merchant services at Bank of America at the time of this announcement. And since Elavon is a subsidiary of US Bank, the two companies directly compete.
Mlynarski replaces Elavon’s former CEO, Jamie Walker, who is being moved to take charge of a new US bank unit focusing on money management and digital assets.
Stripe Power’s Granum’s New LMN Pay
Granum just rolled out a new integrated payment solution, LMN Pay powered by Stripe.
It’s specifically designed for LMN’s landscaping business management software. And while I often include new product releases in my monthly roundups, I find this one more noteworthy than others for a few reasons.
Here’s why:
- Granum is the newly formed parent company of three software products: LMN, SingleOps, and Greenius.
- SingleOps already has integrated payments functionality, which is powered by ProPay (a Global Payments company).
- Rather than just expanding what already exists for another product, Granum chose to work with a completely different processor for LMN Pay.
I’m wondering if this will signal changes ahead for SingleOps and their relationship with ProPay/Global. It’s pure speculation. But clearly they weren’t happy enough with the setup to replicate it with another tool.
Delaware, Colorado, and Rhode Island Propose New Interchange Laws
The Interchange Prohibition Act in Illinois, set to take effect on July 1, 2026, has inspired other states to introduce similar laws.
- Delaware – House committee advanced a bill to the chamber floor that would ban interchange fees on tips.
- Colorado – Senate committee passed a bill banning interchange fees on sales tax, and it’s expected to move to the full Senate floor soon.
- Rhode Island – A legislative committee heard testimony on a similar bill. This is in the earliest stages of the three.
Mastercard is Acquiring BVNK for $1.8 Billion
Mastercard entered into a definitive agreement to purchase BVNK for $1.8 billion, which includes $300 million in contingent payments.
BVNK is a London-based fintech company that specializes in stablecoin infrastructure. The deal helps further position Mastercard to support the movement of digital assets across different regions, rails, and currencies.
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