So far, most observers would agree same-day ACH credit processing, introduced nearly a year ago on the nation’s automated clearing house network, has been a success. Users appear to be satisfied with the service, and risk appears to be under control, observers say, despite the shorter windows for fraud detection. …
Read More »A Ten-Fold Boom in Mobile P2P Will Reward Providers But Also Build Pressure for Fees
Now that financial institutions have launched a digital peer-to-peer payment service called Zelle to battle popular nonbank services like Venmo, the rival platforms are likely to divide up a rapidly growing market but will also face pressure to find ways to charge for the service. While overall U.S. P2P dollar …
Read More »Amazon Wins FTC And Whole Foods Shareholder OK for Its $13.7 Billion Deal
With the blessing of the Federal Trade Commission and Whole Foods Market Inc. shareholders, Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday cleared the last significant hurdles in the way of its $13.7 billion deal to acquire the Austin, Texas-based chain of some 470 grocery stores. The deal, which was announced in June and …
Read More »At 2 Million Downloads, Chicago’s Transit System Sees an Appetite for Mobile Payment
A pioneering mobile-payment wallet for mass transit has reached a milestone. Chicago’s Ventra app has been downloaded more than 2 million times since it became available in November 2015, according to an announcement Monday from Cubic Transportation Systems, the San Diego-based company that developed the app. Commuters have bought almost …
Read More »Aging Systems, Absence of a Mandate Among Faster-Payments Hurdles, Report Says
A number of daunting challenges face the U.S. payments industry as it sets out to make speedier transactions available everywhere in the country within three years, according to a report released this week by Aite Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. Among these challenges are the absence of an industrywide mandate …
Read More »One Year Later, Grocer New Seasons Says Faster EMV Has Made Everybody Happy
It’s been a year since the so-called faster EMV burst on the scene at some grocery stores on the West Coast, and so far officials at the chain that owns the two store brands involved in that launch couldn’t be more pleased with how the technology has smoothed out EMV’s …
Read More »Hard Fork Notwithstanding, Bitcoin Shoots Past $4,000 As Expansion Moves Draw Near
Less than two weeks after a hard fork in its code that some observers feared might devalue Bitcoin, the digital currency is riding high. Early Sunday, Bitcoin’s price soared past $4,000 for the first time. The coin traded at $4,106 by late afternoon, up 7% over the previous 24 hours, …
Read More »In a Surprise Move, the DoJ Asks the Supreme Court Not to Take AmEx Steering Case
In a brief filed Aug. 7, the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court not to take up an appeal over a lower-court ruling upholding a so-called steering practice by American Express Co. The DoJ, which in 2010 joined 17 states in suing AmEx over the practice, argues …
Read More »Looking to Expand Its Lending Capacity, PayPal Strikes a Deal to Buy Swift Capital
The financial crisis of 2007-09 forced many banks to retreat from small-business lending, leaving a gap that digital-payments companies have rushed to fill. The latest move in this direction came Thursday, when PayPal Holdings Inc. said it has a deal to buy Swift Financial Corp., a Wilmington, Del.-based lender founded …
Read More »After CardFree’s Suit Against LevelUp, the Mobile Specialists Trade Salvos in Court Filings
Litigation between CardFree Inc. and Scvngr Inc., better known as LevelUp, has taken a nasty turn in recent weeks, with LevelUp accusing CardFree of high-pressure tactics outside the courtroom and CardFree charging LevelUp with more instances of fraudulent access to its mobile order-ahead-and-pay system. In its June 21 answer to …
Read More »