Competitive Strategies

The fast-growing field of open banking got another boost Monday when the big payment processor Fiserv Inc. announced a major industry player, MX Technologies Inc., will use its AllData Connect service. AllData Connect is part of Fiserv’s AllData Aggregation platform that provides consumer-permitted access to tokenized financial account and transaction …

The world’s biggest card networks earlier this month reacted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by closing their operations in Russia, and now some of the world’s biggest processors are beginning to report their exposure to those markets. For Paris-based Worldline S.A., it’s not trivial, but it’s not huge, either. …

Mobile point-of-sale provider FreedomPay said it has signed Sephora USA, a retail chain offering beauty products at more than 500 stores.The total value of consumer credit card rewards globally will rise 15% to $108 billion by 2026 from $92 billion this year, fueled by increasing adoption of cobranded cards issued by merchants, according to …

Boosted by strong growth in its automated clearing house services, credit card acquiring, and other business lines, merchant processor Usio Inc. reported Thursday that its total dollars processed grew 215% in 2021’s fourth quarter from a year earlier and 184% for the full year. San Antonio, Texas-based Usio processed $9.5 …

A new, $1-million limit takes effect on Friday for same-day processing of automated clearing house transactions. The new cap, 10 times higher than the former one, is expected to open the ACH for faster processing of more large-value transfers and is seen as a landmark move toward faster payments as …

Cannabis-payments platform CanPay said it has passed half a billion dollars in transactions, processing for more than 800 merchant locations in 31 in states.A cryptocurrency-investment platform called BitStore introduced a Mastercard-branded prepaid card that allows users to make payments at merchants with their crypto assets. Processing is handled by Alchemy Pay.Payments provider PayTrace Inc. announced it …

RocketFuel Blockchain, Inc., a provider of payment technology for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, has finalized the integration of its payment solution with ACI Worldwide Inc. The integration to ACI’s Secure eCommerce platform will enable ACI’s more than 80,000 merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments with no processing fees. The partnership between …

Priority Technology Holdings LLC late on Wednesday reported $144 million in revenue for 2021’s December quarter and $514.9 million for the full year, increases of 35.7% and 27.4% year-over-year, respectively.  The Alpharetta, Ga.-based company, which ranks among the 25 largest merchant processors in the country, handles payments and related services …

Escalent Inc., an analytics and advisory firm, said it acquired Mercator Advisory Group, adding to its payments advisory portfolio. Escalent acquired Javelin Strategy & Research in 2019. Current Mercator president and chief executive Robert Misasi will help with the transition before leaving these positions.MoneyGram International Inc. agreed to pay a civil monetary penalty of …

Buy now, pay later options for consumers continue to grow. Nascent airline Breeze Airways will offer Uplift Inc.’s BNPL option to its travelers and Mastercard Inc. announced several more retailers joined its Mastercard Installments program. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Uplift said it is the exclusive BNPL option for Breeze flights. The service …