Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• The Western Union Co. said it has integrated Apple Pay into its mobile app, allowing U.S. customers to use the mobile-payments service to fund money transfers to more than 200 countries and territories, including domestic bill payments. More than 60% of digital-money transfers on Western Union’s network are initiated on a mobile device, the company says. An integration with Apple Pay for transfers from the United Kingdom is planned for later in the year.
• U.S.-based payments provider Net Element Inc. announced it supports Apple Pay in Russia on its PayOnline e-commerce platform. Launched in Russia in October, Apple Pay now claims an estimated 200,000 users in that country, according to Net Element.
• Starbucks Corp. updated its mobile app for Apple Inc.’s iPhone; the new app gives customers the ability of customers to send a digital gift card via Apple’s iMessage texting app and pay for them through Apple Pay.
• A survey of financial institutions in the Western United States found low awareness and adoption of faster-payments initiatives. Some 57% of 430 respondents said same-day automated clearing house credits, enabled in September, have “had no measurable impact on … transactions.” Thirty-four percent said they were unaware of the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force, and 46% said they had only high-level knowledge. The survey was conducted by WesPay, a San Francisco-based trade association.
• PayPal Holdings Inc. and Visa Inc. said they have extended to the Asia-Pacific market an agreement they reached last year that allows PayPal users to more easily make transactions on their Visa cards at PayPal-accepting merchants and gives PayPal access to Visa’s tokenization engine for in-store transactions at Visa-accepting merchants.
• Independent sales organization Bluefin Payment Systems LLC said its PayConex Plus platform achieved EMV chip card certification with processor First Data Corp.
• Bank technology provider Cummins Allison said Southwest Capital Bank installed 35 of its ATMs.
• Apptizer, a company that specializes in simplifying the development of mobile apps for businesses, has integrated with Apriva’s payment gateway.
