Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau order handed down Thursday that asks Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Square Inc., and PayPal Holdings Inc. to turn over information about their payments products, plans, and practices has industry observers lining up on both sides of the …

American Express Co. reported strong results Friday morning for its third quarter as its top executive said the company hasn’t exhausted its interest in acquisitions, though he added the New York City-based payments company is cool to the prospects for cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange. Chief executive Stephen Squeri …

International payments provider Klarna Bank AB acquired Inspirock, an online trip planner used by 25 million customers annually. Terms were not disclosed.In related news, Klarna said it is working with software-as-a-service platform provider Wix.com Inc. to enable Wix’s e-commerce merchants in 17 countries to accept payments through Klarna.Processor Lightspeed Commerce Inc. expanded its Lightspeed Capital program …

As part of its strategy to remove friction from the accounts-payable and accounts-receivable process for small and medium-size businesses, payment-technology provider Veem Inc. on Thursday announced a partnership with Q2 Holdings, Inc., a provider of digital banking and lending solutions. Under the terms of the deal, Veem will make its …

The big open-banking provider Plaid Inc. on Thursday launched a major international campaign to support so-called account-based payments, working in league with almost 50 fintech companies and service providers in North America and Europe. The partners include long-time Plaid allies Dwolla Inc. and Square Inc., as well as new connections …

PayPal Holdings Inc. might buy the Pinterest social media company for approximately $45 billion in what would be the tech industry’s biggest takeover of 2021, Bloomberg reported.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued an order to Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, PayPal, and Square asking for information on how they use personal payment data …

Building on its strategy of expanding beyond payments acceptance, Stripe Inc. on Wednesday announced the acquisition of Recko Inc., a provider of payments-reconciliation software for Internet businesses. Terms were not disclosed. The deal follows the debut of new applications this year intended to carry out this strategy, such as Stripe …

The heady times for buy now, pay later just keep on rolling. Now, with 44% of consumers saying they have used BNPL options to make a purchase, according to personal-finance company Credit Karma LLC, providers of the point-of-sale financing have opened the ad-spending spigot.  A new report from MediaRadar, a …

American Express Co. said it and Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking are collaborating on a cloud-based payments service for large corporate clients. AmEx’s virtual cards will be available in the Goldman Sachs TxB platform, which already offers automated clearing house, wire, and foreign currency payments.A study from Alliance Data Systems Corp. indicates 27% of …

Sensing an opportunity to expand the reach of its financial services to more small businesses, Intuit Inc. on Tuesday introduced Money by QuickBooks, a mobile app intended to make it easier for small sellers to accept payment, manage their cash flow, and pay bills. Intuit launched the app in response …

Driven by a surge in business-to-business and health-care claims payments, transactions on the nation’s automated clearing house network swelled 7.7% year-over-year in the third quarter, according to Nacha, the organization that governs the network. Transactions totaled 7.3 billion, up by 520 million, while dollar volume totaled $18.1 trillion, a 13/8% …

Paysafe Ltd. said it relaunched its U.S. partner program for independent sales organizations, independent software vendors, and financial institutions.Anaheim Arena Management, manager of the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., has selected SpotOn Transact Inc.’s Appetize unit to manage all concessions through cloud technology. The move comes in advance of the new National Hockey …

The movement to speed up cross-border payments received another boost Monday as Mastercard Inc. announced the integration of Mastercard Cross-Border Services, the card network’s global push payments platform, with Previse Ltd.’s InstantPay platform.  The cross-border payments integration, which leverages machine learning, will enable companies to identify invoices likely to be …

In a move aimed in part at accommodating digital-only financial institutions, Visa Inc. on Saturday opened its ReadyLink prepaid top-up network for the first time to debit cards. “The expansion makes Visa ReadyLink available to all consumer and business debit cards. The service is optional and issuers need to opt-in,” …

Fiserv Inc. announced the acquisition of BentoBox, a specialist in online restaurant platforms and technology. BentoBox serves more than 14,000 restaurant locations. Terms were not disclosed.Mindbody, a payments and technology platform for the fitness industry, announced it has closed on its acquisition of ClassPass, a monthly subscription service also focused on …

By: Kat Ambrose Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers shifted focus to e-commerce. Despite the world gradually returning to in-person experiences, online shopping continues to grow exponentially. In fact, the e-commerce industry is projected to grow from $4.28 trillion this year to $6.39 trillion in 2024. With more people online …

The global shortage of semiconductor chips that’s plaguing the makers of point-of-sale terminals and other payment devices has left at least one technology firm sitting pretty, its founder and chief executive says. “It’s wind in our sails,” says Sam Shawki, chief executive of MagicCube Inc. That’s because MagicCube’s technology enables …

VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings, a special-purpose acquisition company, announced its shareholders approved VPC’s acquisition of Bakkt, thus taking the digital-asset marketplace public.Payments-technology provider Worldnet Payments said it is the first integrated payments platform to complete a Level III EMV and contactless certification of Ingenico’s Self Series of devices. Ingenico is a unit of Worldline S.A.Payments …

As part of its strategy to support application developers, open-banking platform provider Plaid Inc. this week introduced at its developer conference several tools to help developers create a broader range of financial technology applications regardless of the programming language developers use. The new suite of tools include Plaid Pattern apps, which …

In a deal that could have important implications for payments providers like Square Inc. and Stripe Inc., the United Kingdom’s SumUp Inc. early Thursday announced it has acquired Fivestars Loyalty Inc., a San Francisco-based payment facilitator for some 12,000 small businesses. The acquisition, SumUp’s first in the U.S. market, calls …