Payments News Today: October 31, 2026

Payment processing news for October 31, 2026: the FTC's pricing probe, the $6.4B Binance hack, Mastercard's Q3 and Visa-Tencent, with steps for merchants.

Adrian ReyesSenior Payments & Fintech Editor

October 31, 2026 · 8 min read

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On this page 5 sections

FTC Opens a Surveillance Pricing Investigation Into Nine Big Sellers
Binance Loses About $6.4 Billion in a Record Hack Linked to North Korea
Mastercard Q3 2026 Earnings: Revenue Grew Twice as Fast as Volume
Visa and Tencent Expand Their Partnership After a China Approval
What This Week's Payment Processing News Means for Your Checkout

Key takeaways

If any of your prices change from one shopper to the next, you should be able to explain the rule behind it in one sentence. That's the question the FTC is now asking nine large sellers.
Card and cash prices that are posted for everyone depend on how the customer pays, not on who the customer is. They still have to follow network rules and state disclosure law.
If you accept crypto, the money held with a custodian between payouts is money you could lose. Converting daily instead of weekly cuts your largest exposure to about one-seventh.
Mastercard's revenue grew about twice as fast as the dollar volume on its network. Track the network-fee lines on your statement separately from your processor's markup.

The payment processing news for October 31, 2026 boils down to two things every merchant should be able to explain: how you set prices, and where your money sits before it reaches your bank. This week the Federal Trade Commission ordered nine large sellers to show whether they charge different people different prices based on personal data. Binance lost roughly $6.4 billion in what blockchain analysts call the largest crypto theft on record. Mastercard reported 14% revenue growth, and Visa expanded its partnership with Tencent in China.

FTC Opens a Surveillance Pricing Investigation Into Nine Big Sellers

According to the agency's press release, the FTC sent orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act to Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart. Reuters first reported the orders on Wednesday, Oct. 28. Each company has to document the inputs, tools and procedures it uses to set prices, and for the gig platforms, to set worker pay.

The FTC wants to know whether the price of a ticket, ride or delivery changes from one person to the next. Two factors it named are whether the customer is in a loyalty program and whether algorithms analyze the customer's personal data. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said consumers "deserve to know whether companies use their web surfing habits or other personal data" to work out the most each shopper will pay.

A 6(b) order is a fact-finding tool, not a lawsuit. The Star Tribune notes that the FTC has no legal authority to ban personalized pricing. It also has no rulemaking power over the three airlines. Even so, CNBC reported, citing Reuters, that Ferguson has said personalized pricing could break consumer protection law when shoppers don't expect it, and that companies should expect enforcement. State lawmakers have been pushing bills to ban personalized pricing. The National Retail Federation, on the other side, defends discounts that use customer data to reward loyalty. Instacart told Fox Business it "does not and will not engage in surveillance pricing," and Delta denied using personal data to price fares.

This matters even if you're far smaller than Walmart. The questions in these orders are the same ones a regulator, a state attorney general or a plaintiff's lawyer would ask a smaller seller. If your online store, marketplace or app runs price tests, personalized coupons or location-based pricing, you should be able to explain the rule behind each one in a sentence.

Posted Card and Cash Prices Are Not Personalized Pricing

Pricing that depends on how the customer pays is a separate category. With dual pricing, every customer sees the same two prices, one for cash and one for card, and picks one. A surcharging program adds a disclosed fee to card payments. It has to follow card network rules and state laws, which vary by state.

Under either program, the price depends on payment method, the customer sees it before the sale, and every shopper gets the same price. That is the opposite of the hidden, shopper-by-shopper pricing the FTC is studying. Both programs have their own disclosure requirements, so check current network rules and your state's law with your processor and a qualified attorney.

This is general information, not legal advice.

To check your own pricing this week:

List every place a price can vary: coupons, loyalty tiers, app-only prices, regional pricing and A/B tests.
Write down the inputs for each. A published member discount is easy to defend. "The algorithm decided" is not.
Ask your e-commerce platform or pricing-software vendor whether any tool uses browsing history, location or device data to set prices.
Show loyalty discounts and card-versus-cash price differences where customers can see them before they pay.

Binance Loses About $6.4 Billion in a Record Hack Linked to North Korea

According to TRM Labs, an attacker began moving money out of Binance wallets at 20:05 UTC on Oct. 29. In total, about $6.36 billion left across ten blockchains, most of it within roughly 20 minutes. TRM attributes the theft to TraderTraitor, the North Korean state-sponsored group the FBI blamed for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025.

TRM also says the evidence points to a breach of the system Binance uses to sign transactions from its hot wallets, the wallets kept online for daily use. Chainalysis reached the same conclusion early on Oct. 30, after it saw stolen Binance funds mixed on-chain with funds from last month's Bitget theft. Elliptic calls North Korean involvement likely but not yet certain.

It also notes that U.S. authorities had not officially named anyone when it published.

CBC reported that Binance worked with partners to freeze about $3 billion of the affected assets and raised that figure to $5 billion on Friday afternoon. CNBC reported that the exchange pledged to cover all losses.

The lesson for merchants is about who holds your money, more than about crypto prices. If you accept crypto or stablecoins, someone holds your money between the customer's payment and your bank deposit. Ask any crypto payment partner three things:

Who holds the funds before they are converted to dollars?
How fast do they convert and pay out?
Who absorbs a loss like this one?

Binance chose to make its users whole. That was a company decision, not a protection that comes with crypto. For the federal rules now taking shape around dollar stablecoins, see our explainer on what the GENIUS Act means for merchants.

How Much Money Is Exposed Between Payouts

Here is an illustrative example. Say an online store takes in $20,000 a month in stablecoin payments, spread evenly over 30 days, or about $667 a day. The money stays with a third-party custodian until the store converts it to dollars. If the store converts weekly, the balance builds to about $4,667 just before each payout. If it converts daily, the balance never goes above about $667. The revenue is the same, but the largest amount at risk is one-seventh as big. If your provider converts to dollars at the moment of payment, your exposure lasts only as long as the settlement delay. These numbers are made up, so run the same math with your own volume and payout schedule.

Mastercard Q3 2026 Earnings: Revenue Grew Twice as Fast as Volume

Mastercard reported its third-quarter results on Oct. 29 in an earnings release filed with the SEC. Net income was $4.6 billion, diluted earnings per share were $5.28, and net revenue was $9.8 billion, up 14%. Gross dollar volume rose 7% and purchase volume rose 9%, both measured in local currency. GuruFocus's summary of the filing puts growth in cross-border volume at 11%. According to the Globe and Mail's summary of the earnings call, management credited activity on the payment network and demand for value-added services. CEO Michael Miebach pointed to agentic commerce and the company's new Global Money Platform, which runs through BVNK.

The number merchants should notice is the ratio. Net revenue grew about twice as fast as the dollar volume moving across the network. That means Mastercard is earning more on each dollar spent with its cards, helped by cross-border spending and by services sold on top of the basic transaction. Part of what card networks charge reaches you as network fees that your processor passes through.

Cross-border fees matter most for online stores and travel businesses with foreign customers. Our breakdown of cross-border fees versus foreign transaction fees explains which one you pay. Pull your last three statements and add up the network-fee lines separately from your processor's markup. If those lines are growing faster than your sales, ask your processor to explain the increase line by line.

Visa and Tencent Expand Their Partnership After a China Approval

CNBC reported that Visa and Tencent signed a memorandum of understanding on Oct. 29 to expand their work on cross-border payments, money transfers and AI-driven shopping. The deal comes after the People's Bank of China approved Visa earlier in October to start preparing a domestic bank card clearing business. That approval only allows preparations to begin. It does not, by itself, let Visa start clearing domestic transactions.

Under the agreement, the companies will explore:

Simpler payments for travelers entering and leaving China, through TenPay Global and Visa Pay
Payment options at participating merchants on the Weixin Pay and Visa networks
Upgraded money transfers using Visa Direct
Agentic commerce, where AI agents find and buy products for consumers

The two companies have worked together since 2019, when Visa announced plans to let international Visa cardholders pay through WeChat Pay in China.

"Explore" is the key word, and nothing changes at a U.S. checkout this week. Hotels, tour operators and retailers in gateway cities that serve visitors from China should watch which payment options actually launch and which acquirers support them. Until then, the thing you can actually work on is getting foreign cards approved. One route is international payment processing that accepts multiple currencies and reviews whether to settle in USD or the local currency. Our guide to local acquiring versus cross-border processing explains when processing through a local bank improves approvals. For background on AI shopping agents, read about Visa and Mastercard's agentic commerce plans.

What This Week's Payment Processing News Means for Your Checkout

Each story has a follow-up worth tracking:

FTC pricing probe: The FTC declined to tell the Star Tribune how it plans to use what it collects. Watch for a staff report, and watch for state bills on personalized pricing, which may reach smaller sellers before any federal rule does.
Binance: The open questions are whether U.S. authorities confirm that North Korea was behind the hack and how much of the stolen money is eventually frozen or recovered. Elliptic notes that the FBI named North Korea within five days after the Bybit hack.
Mastercard: Watch the gap between revenue growth and volume growth in future quarters.

The most useful thing to do this week is review your statement. Separate network fees from your processor's markup and flag any line that is growing faster than your sales. Then decide whether a program with posted card and cash prices, such as a cash discount, fits your business and your state's rules. If you want a second look at how your statement breaks down, request a free quote, and a MannyPay specialist will respond within one business day. For earlier headlines, see Wednesday's roundup on PayPal, AI agents and stablecoins.

Sources

About the author

Adrian Reyes

Adrian Reyes is Senior Payments & Fintech Editor for Beyond the Swipe, covering credit card processing, merchant accounts, payment technology and processing fees.

This article is for general educational purposes and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Card network rules and state laws change; confirm current requirements for your business.