Competitive Strategies

Get ready for even more sophisticated in-car virtual assistance. Cerence Inc., which develops in-car virtual technology, has launched Co-Pilot, its advanced assistant that uses artificial intelligence and vehicle integration to help with such tasks as ordering and paying for a coffee while a mile away. Cerence says its technology—it has …

Taptap Send, a startup providing instant-payment capability for cross-border transfers, announced a $65-million Series B funding round led by Spark Capital. Its total financing now tops $80 million.Humboldt State University will adopt the Passport Parking app for on-campus parking beginning Jan. 18, announced Passport Parking.The Center for Advanced Facial Plastic Surgery said …

Building on the concept of transferring money directly from a bank account to a debit card, Astra Inc., a provider of bank-to-bank transfer technology, has introduced an application programming interface that enables money to be transferred from one debit card to another using the debit card networks.  The API, which …

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., …

Food-ordering and delivery provider Waitr Holdings Inc. said it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Retail Innovation Labs Inc., known as Cova, a provider of point-of-sale software for cannabis dispensaries. The deal calls for a price of $90 million in cash and stock.Agilysys Inc., a provider of payments …

The move toward cashless sports stadiums continues to accelerate. UBS Arena, home of the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders, has contracted with Fiserv Inc. to install Clover point-of-sale hardware and Bypass point-of-sale software to enable digital and contactless payment options throughout the venue.  UBS Arena will deploy more than …

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 …

Six U.S. Senators sent a letter to Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, asking the agency to initiate a review of buy now, pay later products with a view toward introducing consumer protections. All six Senators are Democratic members of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.Online gaming operator PointsBet has …

The Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be a huge boon for e-commerce, but it has come at a cost for merchants in the form of higher chargebacks. The higher level of chargebacks is not just consumers returning items for legitimate reasons, it’s also being fueled by consumers perpetrating friendly fraud.  …

There are few subjects that raise the ire of merchants more than the runaway costs of card acceptance. For years, many have grumbled about the costs but felt powerless to do anything about them. Now, as the result of a chain of court victories at the state and federal level, …