Competitive Strategies

Just as the Covid-19 pandemic spurred many consumers to turn to online shopping, merchants have experienced a corresponding increase in their chargeback rates. Sixty-eight percent of merchants said the pandemic affected their chargeback rates, found the second annual Chargeback Field Report from Chargebacks911, a chargeback-management platform. Clearwater, Fla.-based Chargebacks911 also …

Mitek Systems Inc., a provider of digital identity-verification technology, said it has acquired ID R&D Inc., a provider of voice and face biometrics technology, for up to $49 million in Mitek stock and cash.Payments processor Fleetcor Technologies Inc. closed on its acquisition of cross-border payments specialist Associated Foreign Exchange Inc. The deal, …

With small and medium businesses looking to establish or expand their e-commerce presence, Wix.com Ltd., an Israeli-based provider of cloud-based Web-development services, is adding Skrill, a digital wallet and payments gateway operated by Paysafe Group Holdings Ltd., to its platform. Integrating Skrill will enable Wix merchants to accept credit and …

Vendors of parking apps in North America have an even more potent new competitor with the closing on Tuesday of EasyPark Group’s acquisition of the Park Now Group, which includes Atlanta-based ParkMobile LLC. The deal, which the companies announced in March, brings a major North American stake to Stockholm-based EasyPark, …

Deluxe Corp. has closed on its $960-million cash deal for payments provider First American Payments Systems, announced in April. The acquisition doubles Deluxe’s payments revenue to $600 million annually, driving its share of the company’s overall revenue from 17% to 29%.Authentication-technology provider LoginID Inc. said it has received an undisclosed investment from Visa Inc., …

Consumers traveling with cryptocurrencies busting out of their digital wallets will be able to spend some of that at select Sheetz convenience stores later this summer. Sheetz says it is the first c-store chain to accept crypto. In an announcement Friday, the 622-store chain says it will enable crypto acceptance …

Shopify Inc.’s 1.7 million-plus merchants will have access to Google Cloud technology in more regions under a new agreement.Buy now, pay later provider Klarna Bank AB said its U.S. user base more than doubled in April year-over-year, to 17 million. The user base worldwide totals 90 million.The big France-based processor Worldline S.A. has agreed to …

At the height of the pandemic last spring, the World Bank projected that 2020 remittances to low- and middle-income countries would decline by 20% year-over-year—nearly $445 billion—because of lower wages and growing unemployment among migrant workers. And in the process, there would be yet another casualty of Covid-19 as the …

Building on what it says is its strategy to make electronic bill payment simpler and more accessible to consumers, doxo Inc. is offering consumers a bill-payment service that avoids fees.  The Seattle-based provider of digital billing and payment services says it is bypassing the transaction fees some billers, such as …

With merchants of all sizes looking to get in on the rush to e-commerce triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, Square Inc. announced Thursday morning a service that lets sellers set up a product listing on Google. The new program, aimed at merchants using Square for Retail, aims at simplifying online …