Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The number of Apple Pay users has surpassed that of the Starbucks mobile-payments service, says eMarketer Inc., marking the first time a general-purpose mobile app has become more popular than the coffee retailer’s. New York City-based eMarketer counted 30.3 million U.S. Apple Pay users, while Starbucks had 25.2 million users. …

Discover Financial Services reported its Payment Services unit, which includes activity on the Pulse electronic funds transfer network, on Diners Club cards, and with network partners, recorded $62.6 billion in volume in the third quarter, up 7% year-over-year. Volume on Pulse alone increased 5% to $47.5 billion. With Discover network proprietary …

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Early Warning said Zelle’s volume totaled $49 billion, up 58% from 2018’s third quarter. Over the same time, transactions increased 73% to 196 million. Dollar volume on the Zelle peer-to-peer payments service increased more than 50% year-over-year in the third quarter while the transaction count jumped even more, …

The bank card networks lengthened their 2019 streak of merger-and-acquisition activity on Tuesday with Mastercard Inc. announcing it has a deal to acquire marketing software developer SessionM and Visa Inc. reporting it completed its acquisition of Rambus Inc.’s token services and ticketing businesses. Mastercard said the addition of SessionM will enhance …

The long-awaited common buy button became a reality Tuesday with an announcement from the four major payment card networks that they have enabled the technology for three e-commerce merchants. Half a dozen more are expected to come online for the technology, called Secure Remote Commerce, by the end of the …

Fiserv Inc. said its Clover point-of-sale system is in use throughout Fiserv Forum, a Milwaukee arena that is home to the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team. Fiserv said more than 25 large stadiums and arenas use Clover. In 2018, Clover processed more than $70 billion in payment volume.Evolve Bank & Trust said it …

Mastercard Inc. says a number of new partners have signed on to use or test its Mastercard Bill Pay Exchange platform, including Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (ConEd), one of the nation’s largest utilities. Unveiled a year ago, Bill Pay Exchange enables consumers using their bank or credit union’s online …

Payments typically flow from consumer to merchant, but in the case of merchandise returns, they flow the other way, and it turns out returns are an almost universal experience these days. That’s putting pressure on merchants to streamline the returns process and find ways to deal with consumer sensitivity about …

Discover Network announced a holiday promotion running through December that offers discounts and other promotions to cardholders who shop at Amazon.com and at some Amazon physical stores.Payments provider AvidXchange launched its AvidPay and AvidInvoice services for the long-term health-care and social-service industries. The services automate accounts-payable and payments processes.Data-security specialist KnowBe4 released its list of …

Issuer and acquirer American Express Co. said its global third-quarter discount rate—what merchants pay to accept the brand’s credit cards—was 2.39%, a slight increase from 2.38% a year ago. The uptick comes more than a year after AmEx said it would shave its worldwide discount rate in an effort to boost …

Payments and retail-technology provider Shopify Inc. announced it has closed on its acquisition of 6 River Systems Inc., a developer of cloud-based software and mobile robots for fulfillment. Terms were not announced.Fast Park, which operates parking garages near airports, announced it will accept credit and debit cards exclusively for payment at all …

With a proxy fight looming, vending-machine payments provider USA Technologies Inc. announced late Thursday that chief executive Stephen P. Herbert has resigned. Herbert, a former Pepsi-Cola executive, spent 23 years with Malvern, Pa.-based USAT, including eight as CEO. USAT’s board of directors named one of its members, Donald W. Layden …

John Newton – Vice President of Sales, Strategic Partnership Channel, First American Payment Systems If one-to-many isn’t part of your ISO’s growth strategy, it should be. The days of selling on price and free equipment are in the rearview mirror. Product parity has leveled the playing field, with market compression …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has made no secret of its push to generate revenue from its highly popular—but free—Venmo peer-to-peer payment service. Its latest gambit came to light early Thursday with the news that long-time finance partner Synchrony Financial will issue a Venmo credit card for the U.S. market starting the …

Galileo Financial Technologies, a 19-year-old developer of application programming interfaces for payments, announced a $77 million institutional funding round led by venture-capital firm Accel.Flowhub Holdings Inc., provider of a management platform for cannabis retailers, announced a Series A funding round whose participants included Iqram Magdon-Ismail, the co-founder and former CEO …

Rental payments are the top use case by far on the Zelle person-to-person payments network, according to the chief executive of Zelle provider Early Warning Services LLC. “From an end-user use-case perspective, far and away the No. 1 use case for Zelle right now is actually a rent payment,” Albert …

There’s little doubt that Apple Inc.’s Apple Card has stirred plenty of publicity before and since its Aug. 20 launch. And it enjoys the backing not just of Apple but of investment-banking giant Goldman Sachs, the card’s issuer. But is it “the most successful credit card launch ever?” That claim …

Twenty-one percent of consumers used a mobile app to pay a bill in 2019’s first quarter, up from 19% in the year-earlier period, according to a survey of more than 3,000 consumers by ACI Worldwide Inc. Meanwhile, 28% used a paper check, down from 32% a year earlier, according to the ACI …

Two senior Federal Reserve officials said Tuesday they are committed to rolling out the proposed FedNow real-time payments service as quickly as possible, but they didn’t say the original schedule calling for a launch in 2023 or even 2024 will be shortened. “We will be making every effort, I think, to …

With same-day transaction growth sizzling, the automated clearing house network overall notched another quarter of robust growth. The system logged 6.2 billion transactions in the quarter ended Sept. 30, up 9.5% over the third quarter of 2018, according to figures released Tuesday by Nacha, the network’s governing body. Total payment …