The basis of digital payments is typically an account at a financial institution, which can hand these institutions quite a bit of influence over payment activity. It turns out, though, that consumers like to stick with their bank once they’ve opened an account. Even among persons aged 18 to 34, …
Read More »How the ACH May Have Been the Winner of the Pandemic Payments Sweepstakes
The share of payments claimed by the automated clearing house rose faster in 2020 than the share for cards, while checks dropped markedly. All the while, the share of payments claimed by cards, which had been steadily on the rise for years, flattened out. And while contactless transactions did rise …
Read More »Fingerprint Signs a Deal to Bring Its Iris-Recognition Tech to Devices From Indian Firm Mantra
Fingerprint Cards AB early Wednesday said it has agreed to provide iris-recognition technology to Mantra Softech India Pvt Ltd., said to be the largest provider in India of biometric devices and sensors. Terms of the multi-year contract were not disclosed. Under the terms of the deal, Mantra will deploy the …
Read More »Ransomware May Be Terrorism, But Security Pros Differ Markedly in How to Deal With It
Security professionals around the world equate ransomware attacks with terrorism, but they differ markedly from country to country in their willingness to play ball with the attackers. That’s according to survey results released Tuesday that gathered data from more than 1,500 security executives in the United States, the United Kingdom, …
Read More »With BNPL’s Fast Rise, the CFPB Issues a Demand Letter Seeking Data From Five Firms
The explosion in buy now, pay later point-of-sale lending was bound to catch the eye of regulators sooner or later, and on Thursday the other shoe dropped with a letter sent to five leading BNPL firms from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requesting information on their services. The five—Affirm Inc., …
Read More »Vibes, a Provider of Mobile Marketing Tech, Launches ‘Mobile Wallet as a Channel’
As mobile-wallet technology matures, marketers are starting to look at ways to reach consumers with content that stays in the wallet as permanently as a credit or debit card. The latest move in this direction emerged Wednesday with the unveiling of “Mobile Wallet as a Channel,” a service that lets …
Read More »Klarna Teams With GoCardless to Ease Installments Via Account-to-Account Transfers
Sweden’s Klarna AB has 21 million users in the U.S. market for its buy now, pay later app, but it wants a lot more. On Tuesday, it announced it will ease payments for its users by letting them pay off installments via direct transfers from their bank account. The service …
Read More »Wells And HSBC Unveil a Blockchain for Faster And Cheaper Cross-Border Transfers
The world’s banking giants may or may not adopt cryptocurrencies at some point, but they are clearly looking to adopt the distributed-ledger technology that undergirds digital money. In the latest such move, Wells Fargo & Co. and HSBC Bank plc early Monday announced they have agreed to process cross-border transactions …
Read More »As BNPL’s Allure Continues to Grow, ISOs Set Out to Mine the Merchant Potential
The pandemic has lent momentum to a number of trends in digital payments, but one of the biggest is the buy now, pay later option. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that providers of the service are now looking to sell the service to merchants of all sizes through the acquiring …
Read More »Fortis Fortifies Its Position With ISVs Via Its Acquisition of VIP Integrated Payments
Fortis has proven in recent months to be one of the country’s most active payments providers when it comes to extending capabilities for independent software vendors, and now it has expanded further in that business with its acquisition of VIP Integrated Payments in a deal announced Wednesday. Terms were not …
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