Competitive Strategies

Ever since the Covid pandemic set in more than a year ago, the payments industry has been abuzz with talk about its various impacts on merchant acceptance. What hasn’t received as much attention is how the pandemic has affected merchant acquiring. It turns out processors and independent sales organizations have …

An Australian Parliament committee held a hearing investigating Apple Inc.’s policies regarding access to the secure element for payment services on its smart phones, according to a ZDNet.com report. Apple argued its hardware-based interface is more secure than a software-focused one. Google, which uses host card emulation software for Google Pay, said …

American Express Co. posted second-quarter numbers Friday indicating the card giant is very nearly back to its pre-pandemic performance and reflecting a steady recovery from the travel restrictions that hampered the company for most of 2020. Driving the improved results was steady improvement in the company’s vital travel-and-entertainment business and …

Blockchain-based business-to-business payments network Paystand Inc. announced a $50-million Series C funding round led by NewView Capital.Payments provider Paystone Inc. received a $30-million investment from Credit Mutuel Equity. Paystone said it will use the funds to fuel growth.ForumPay, whose technology converts cryptocurrency spent by consumers into fiat currency for processing, said it will work with …

The yin and yang of political, and ferociously commercial, PayPal was vividly on display with its announcement last month of a massive price hike. The e-commerce phenom attaches itself to an array of woke causes but remains a wonderfully hard-nosed commercial enterprise, keen to be fully compensated for the enormous value …

Visa Inc. has been concentrating on building out its “network-of-networks” strategy for some time, and it’s latest move in that project came early Thursday with the news that it has agreed to acquire Currency Cloud Ltd., a London-based developer of application programming interfaces that can simplify cross-border payments. The deal values …

Since PayPal’s launch more than 20 years ago, the peer-to-peer and digital-cash service industry has seen exponential growth, and with it, exponential amounts of fraud.  An estimated 70% of Americans use peer-to-peer and digital-cash services, and many turned to these products during the pandemic. However, in just the first four …

Discover Financial Services reports its payment services volume of $78.4 billion for the second quarter of 2021 increased 22% from $64.5 billion in the same period a year ago. Its Pulse network dollar volume of $62.9 billion increased 18% from $52.9 billion year-over-year. Discover card sale volume of $45.6 billion increased …

A majority of U.S. consumers in all age groups—76%—would like to decrease their use of credit cards as they seek to avoid debt, are wary of their ability to pay off their balances each month, and have concerns about making the minimum payments, according to a survey from GoCardless Ltd., …

The history of payments in the last century has been a fascinating journey. From gold-backed paper currency to a fiat model that grew beside the convenient credit card system, the method in which we transact has always been reflective of society’s technological capabilities at that time. Even as late as …