Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The confluence of digital payments and economic hardship during the Covid-19 pandemic has led another major supermarket chain to offer SNAP EBT acceptance through its mobile app and on its Web site for curbside pickup and home-delivery orders. H-E-B, with 329 stores in Texas and another 55 in Mexico, said …

Bill payment provider Plastiq launched cash payments, which allows users to make any payment through a linked bank account. Plastiq already enables bill payment via credit cards.InComm Payments has launched an App Store card in Taiwan in partnership with Apple Inc. The cards are being sold through 9,500 7-Eleven and FamilyMart stores on …

Card-not-present transactions continue to grow at financial institutions that use PSCU, a credit union service organization. In its weekly report released Monday, PSCU said CNP accounted for 55.5% of credit card purchase volume and 47.9% of transactions for the week ending Dec. 13. For debit, CNP represented 43.9% of purchase …

Mega-merger fever hasn’t subsided in the payments industry. A combination of FIS Inc. and Global Payments Inc., which have reportedly broken off talks to merge in a deal that could be valued at $70 billion, would represent a continued push for yet more economies of scale in a business whose …

Fast-food chain Burger King is depositing $1 into random Venmo accounts to promote the chain’s $1 Your Way Menu, which features all items at a price of $1. Venmo is a peer-to-peer payments provider owned by PayPal Holdings Inc.Blackhawk Network said it has added a capability to order gift cards for curbside pickup …

A new report finds that debit card use is gaining favor among consumers compared to credit cards immediately following the national election in November. That’s according to The Future of Money Report 2020 from Logica Research. “This unprecedented year has uncovered contrasts between challenges and opportunities in the world as …

An integration between online delivery service Instacart and grocery chain Aldi that lets customers use government benefits to order grocery deliveries has seen fast expansion since the program launched in October. Almost 1,000 Aldi stores in 23 states plus the District of Columbia have been added to the program in recent …

WinCo Foods, a grocery chain with 129 stores in the Western United States, has launched a gift card program from Blackhawk Network.Buy now, pay later service Zip announced an offer of 3% cash back on purchases on its service during the Christmas season through Jan. 8. Zip recently launched Tap & Zip, which …

Household bill payments now total $2.75 trillion per year in the United States, accounting for 21% of all spending by U.S. consumers, according to a report released Thursday by doxo Inc., a provider of digital billing and payment services. The Seattle-based company’s research looks at bill payments via bank accounts …

Startup Slide Mobile is betting that consumer’s love of rewards, coupled with the growing momentum behind cryptocurrency as a contactless payment option during the Covid-19 pandemic, will entice more consumers to use its mobile-payments app. Slide announced this week it is partnering with BitPay Inc., an Atlanta-based processor that offers …

The Hale & Hearty Soups fast-casual chain of 20 locations in Boston and the New York City area has chosen Appetize Technologies Inc. to upgrade its point-of-sale operations. The deployment is expected to conclude next month.With consumers worldwide reluctant to travel by air because of fears of catching Covid-19, some 78% of …

Fiserv Inc. announced Wednesday an agreement to acquire, for an undisclosed sum, Ondot Systems Inc., whose technology includes so-called card controls, or tools that allow cardholders to switch usage on or off according to considerations of security or preferred usage. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter …

GoDaddy Inc.’s agreement to buy Poynt Co., announced late Tuesday, will broaden GoDaddy’s focus into payment services for online merchants and could make the Web-services company a key player in merchant acquiring, observers and company executives say. The deal, in which GoDaddy has agreed to pay $320 million in cash …

Openpay Group Ltd., an Australian buy now, pay later processor, began operations in the U.S market. Simultaneously, the company announced former Deloitte executive Brian Shniderman has been appointed chief executive of the U.S. operation.Fidel Ltd., a provider of financial application programming interfaces, said its API is enabling cash-back offers for …

Less than a week after receiving a buyout offer, Houston-based ATM network operator Cardtronics Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Hudson Executive Capital and Apollo Global Management for $35 per share. The purchase price is $4 per share more than the initial offer and represents a …

Klarna’s buy now, pay later payment options are coming to Verifone Inc. point-of-sale devices, Klarna AB announced Tuesday. This marks the first buy now, pay later option to be available on Verifone POS terminals in the United States and Europe as part of the Verifone Cloud Services platform, Klarna says. …

Payments provider Paysafe Group Holdings Ltd. announced the U.S. launch of Paysafecash, a digital service that allow consumers to pay online in cash. The service is provided by InComm Payments’ Vanilla Direct payment network.Some 30% of consumers have signed up for peer-to-peer payment platforms in the past six months, according to a survey …

A class of 46 million consumers in the United Kingdom cleared a major hurdle last week when the country’s Supreme Court ruled that a class-action suit brought against Mastercard Inc. for excessive interchange fees can proceed. But they still face a major challenge proving that consumers were materially harmed by …

The recent ranswomware attack on the big payments processor TSYS could portend worse to come for the payments business as cyber criminals seek vulnerabilities in the industry and carry out new tactics to squeeze out ransom payments from their victims. More attacks on credit and debit processors are “absolutely” coming, …

Online checkout provider Fast AF Inc. said its service is now available to 4 million e-commerce stores on the WooCommerce platform. Earlier this year, Fast received $20 million from investors, including Stripe.Spending on entertainment decreased for the week ending Dec. 6, compared to the week ending Dec. 8, 2019, with a 23.9% drop in debit …