Competitive Strategies

Organizations hoping for another choice when selecting a vendor to process their online electronic benefits transfer transactions for consumers using SNAP can now opt for Forage. San Francisco-based Forage said the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved it as a third-party payment processor for the SNAP program, the shortened term for …

Bread Financial Holdings Inc. on Monday released a performance update for July, indicating it posted credit card and other loans totaling $17.8 billion last month, a 12% year-over-year increase. The Columbus, Ohio-based provider of personalized payment, lending, and savings solutions said average credit card and other loans for the month …

Technology startup BankiFi, which seeks to enable payments and banking functions for small businesses, announced it has received a $4.8 million investment to fund its expansion into North America. Praetura Ventures led the funding round.Focused Labs, a developer of custom payments software, said it has joined the Stripe Partner Ecosystem. Stripe Inc.’s …

While the recent partnership between fintech Wise US Inc., which specializes in cross-border payments, and Plaid Inc. is another example of the momentum open banking is gaining globally, one overlooked element of the deal is the role the open-banking standard developed by the Financial Data Exchange played in making the …

Central Payments, a unit of Central Bank of Kansas City, completed a $30 million funding round, which was led by Castle Creek Capital and with more investment from Launchpad Capital. The funding spins the company out from Central Bank.PayGround, a digital wallet for medical bills, launched a “get healthy now, pay …

At the end of 2021, comedian Grace Mulvey brought smiles to many on Twitter when she reflected on the unexpected rise of a technology that was laughed off by many. “I can’t think of anyone who has had a better year than the QR code. What a comeback.”  While our …

The drive to encourage consumers to use cryptocurrency to pay for transactions at the point-of-sale shifted into a higher gear Wednesday as BitPay Inc. announced the launch of a cash-back rewards program for its prepaid card. Cardholders, who will be automatically enrolled in the rewards program, can earn up to …

The card-issuing platform Marqeta Inc. on Wednesday reported processing volume of $40 billion for the June quarter, a 53% increase over the same time last year, but the 12-year-old company also announced its founding chief executive is leaving that position. Jason Gardner, a well-known payments entrepreneur, said he will move …

Finix, a payments provider for software platforms, raised $30 million in its latest funding round, bringing its total funding to $133 million. American Express was among investors.Unit, whose technology allows firms to weave accounts, payments, cards, and other banking services into their products, said it has partnered with Thread Bank, a …

Sionic Mobile Corp., a provider of consumer-to-business payments technology, will launch a program that enables independent sales organizations, agents, independent software vendors and other resellers to provide merchant clients with a new Pay-by-Bank service in the United States. The program, which will launch Sept. 1, is intended to help resellers …