Vanco Payment Solutions Inc., a payments provider specializing in the educational and faith-based sectors, said it acquired SmartcareOS LLC, a software provider for child-care centers. Terms were not announced.Entrust Corp., a provider of technology for identity, payments, and data protection, announced it acquired HyTrust Inc., a vendor of data-encryption, key …

Visa Inc. has dropped its year-old, $5.3-billion bid for the data network Plaid Inc. in the wake of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DoJ feared Visa could use Plaid’s links to financial institutions to stifle competition in the debit market, a contention Visa denied.The big drugstore chain Walgreen …

Wells River Bank has agreed to join the Real Time Payments network operated by The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC. The bank will connect to the network through the Shazam EFT network’s Shazam Pay faster-payments gateway.Payments provider Lightspeed POS Inc. launched its Lightspeed Supplier Network, a platform aimed at North American merchants to …

NCR Corp. confirmed it is the party that has made a $39-per-share cash offer to acquire international ATM network operator Cardtronics plc. The last-minute bid trumps a previous, $35-per-share offer from investment firms Hudson Executive Capital and Apollo Global Management.Citizens Financial Group Inc. said it has expanded the reach of its point-of-sale …

Social Finance Inc. said it will use the special purpose acquisition tool to become a publicly traded company. Known as SoFi, the company will merge with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. V, a SPAC, to enter the public market. SoFi’s equity value is pegged at $8.65 billion in the deal. SoFi, which …

NCR Corp. said it acquired Freshop, a grocery e-commerce services provider. Terms were not disclosed. NCR estimates that buy online, pick up in store shopping will increase 25% per year through 2025.Payment Alliance International said it acquired the ATM portfolio of B & B Music & Video, consisting of 580 company-owned and …

Payments platform Qualpay said it is now supporting Google Pay transactions in recognition of increasing consumer usage of mobile wallets.Payments-technology provider Cardknox launched a beta version of its partner portal, intended for the use of sales partners and independent sales vendors to onboard and manage merchant-processing accounts.Digital-payments provider Payrailz has launched Action Insights, a service intended …

In the week before and the week of Christmas, consumers markedly increased their use of mobile wallets, with mobile wallets loaded with a debit card increasing 79.2% from the same weeks a year ago, according to the Tracking Transaction Trends report from PSCU, a credit union service organization. Use of mobile …

Buy now, pay later provider Afterpay Ltd. said users’ average ticket increased 30% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2019.Affirm Inc. completed its acquisition of PayBright, a buy now, pay later provider in Canada.PayPal Holdings Inc. announced a check cashing feature for select Venmo app users. This enables them to have funds …

Count down the 10 most popular stories published in the Digital Transactions News daily newsletter in 2020. #10 Processor Paya Will Go Public Via a So-Called SPAC Merger (Aug. 3) #9 Feeling Heat, Square Explains Its New Reserve Policy (June 23) #8 After Beating Wells Fargo Twice in Court, USAA …