Competitive Strategies

There’s little doubt that Apple Inc.’s Apple Card has stirred plenty of publicity before and since its Aug. 20 launch. And it enjoys the backing not just of Apple but of investment-banking giant Goldman Sachs, the card’s issuer. But is it “the most successful credit card launch ever?” That claim …

Two senior Federal Reserve officials said Tuesday they are committed to rolling out the proposed FedNow real-time payments service as quickly as possible, but they didn’t say the original schedule calling for a launch in 2023 or even 2024 will be shortened. “We will be making every effort, I think, to …

With same-day transaction growth sizzling, the automated clearing house network overall notched another quarter of robust growth. The system logged 6.2 billion transactions in the quarter ended Sept. 30, up 9.5% over the third quarter of 2018, according to figures released Tuesday by Nacha, the network’s governing body. Total payment …

Days after launching services that allow users to make international remittances and use a virtual prepaid card for payments, Samsung Electronics Co. launched Samsung POS, an app that it says will let merchants accept near-field communication payments on their mobile devices. Developed with payments-technology firm Mobeewave, Samsung POS is aimed at micro-merchants and other small …

In the face of multiple defections so far, Facebook Inc.’s controversial cryptocurrency project scored a victory of sorts Monday when 21 remaining backers officially signed on at a crucial meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. In a busy day, the companies making up the Libra Association signed on to the project’s charter, …

The honeymoon is over between vending-machine payments provider USA Technologies Inc. and its largest investor, which on Monday accused the company’s board of directors of “value-destructive conduct” and blasted its top brass for “lack of management qualifications or accountability.” The surly announcement by New York City-based hedge fund Hudson Executive …

Cubic Corp.’s Cubic Transportation Systems unit agreed to integrate contactless transit cards with Alphabet Inc.’s Google Pay mobile-payments app. The integration will begin with contactless payment systems for transit in London, Miami, and New York.BMW, General Motors, Ford, Renault, and Honda will reportedly begin testing a blockchain-based in-car identification and payment system next month …

Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., merchant processor Stripe Inc. and online marketplace eBay Inc. said Friday afternoon they will not join the Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency project. The defections came a week after PayPal Holdings Inc. became the first of the Libra Association’s 28 tentative members to withdraw in the face of …

Payments companies drove merger-and-acquisition activity in the financial-technology sector in 2019’s first nine months, according to a new analysis. Payments firms were involved in four of the top 10 deals tracked by New York City-based investment bank Berkery Noyes Securities LLC. The value of the payments mergers totaled $94.1 billion, …

Facebook Inc. and its proposed Libra cryptocurrency may have stolen the headlines lately, but in the background companies are working to make cryptocurrency like Bitcoin easier to buy and sell by deploying specialized kiosks and simplifying what can seem to outsiders a quite abstruse payment process. One of the most …