Competitive Strategies

With the Federal Reserve’s FedNow service having debuted in July last year and The Clearing House Payments Co.’s  RTP network in operation since 2017, just how soon can the U.S. payments industry expect widespread, routine exchange of real-time transactions? Answers to that question are beginning to emerge. According to a …

Payments companies may not yet be ready to embrace fully the world of blockchains, but some major payments networks are taking steps to deepen their experience in the world of digital currencies. Witness Visa Inc., which early Thursday said it will help banks issue tokens they create on a blockchain. …

The Priority Commerce unit of Priority Technology Holdings Inc. has replaced the subscription billing model for Plastiq, its bill pay service, with a transaction fee per use. It also made all formerly premium subscription tools available to all users. The Small Business Index from the processor Fiserv Inc. indicates small-business sales and total …

The Cleveland Browns of the National Football League are expanding their grab-and-go technology to food-and-beverage concessions throughout Huntington Bank Field, the team’s home stadium. The new service, called Express Access, will be available at 12 locations within the stadium, enabling consumers to place orders across the entire facility. Since 2023, …

Paze, the online checkout service from Early Warning Services LLC, says more than 125 million credit and debit cards are now available to use with the e-commerce checkout tool as the service taps a new general manager. Also, buy now, pay later specialist Klarna AB has become an Apple Inc. …

CellPoint Digital, a payments-orchestration platform, announced an alliance with PayU GPO, a platform for alternative payment methods operating in more than 50 markets globally. In related news, payments-orchestration platform Transcard said it now supports payments globally through multiple currencies in an effort to smooth payments for financial companies operating worldwide. Duck Creek …

Mastercard Inc. announced early Tuesday it is acquiring Minna Technologies, a provider of subscription-management applications. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition will enable consumers to more easily manage, renew, and cancel their subscriptions by providing them a single view of all their subscriptions within their banking apps …

Beginning next summer, PayPal Holdings Inc. will begin sharing more personalized shopper information with merchants, as outlined in its recently updated PayPal Privacy Statement. Data such as products, preferences, sizes, and styles will be shared with merchants to “help improve your shopping experience and make it more personalized for you,” …

Payments-technology provider Stax announced it has acquired payments-gateway provider BlockChyp. Terms were not announced. Payments provider TrustCommerce said its Cloud Payments platform has been certified by all major U.S. processors, including Fiserv, Chase, Elavon, Global Payments/TSYS, and Worldpay. The temporary-staffing platform Indeed Flex is working with payment provider Branch to launch a service called Same Day …

European banks are beginning to roll out a new digital wallet called wero that initially provides account-to-account payments and is expected to be expanded to retail payments as well. If so, wero could prove to be a competitive threat to Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., which dominate European payments, raising …