Competitive Strategies

The Federal Trade Commission announced settlements with the two principals of Apex Capital Group, an Internet marketer of dietary supplements and personal-care products the FTC accused of using deceptive free-trial offers and negative-option billing in the U.S. and United Kingdom. The defendants must surrender assets valued at $3 million or more and are barred …

With three processor megamergers having closed in 2019, the value of firms involved in handling and managing electronic payments has seldom been clearer. But further evidence emerged this week with news of Stripe Inc.’s latest funding round, which valued the San Francisco-based payments-technology company at fully $35 billion. Indeed, at …

With the closing of three megamergers this year, one might think investment opportunities in payments and acquiring could shrink. But that would be an error. That was the assessment of investment professionals speaking Thursday at the Western States Acquirers Association annual conference in Rancho Mirage, Calif.  “It’s a massive industry. …

A survey by processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) found that 54 countries now have active real-time payment programs, up from 40 in 2018 and nearly four times as many as 2014.Cross River Bank, which specializes in services for technology companies, has applied to link to The Clearing House Payments Co.’s Real Time …

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became enforceable on May 28, 2018, in the European Union (EU). Now, almost a year and a half later, things seem to be getting a bit more real as companies like British Airways and Marriott International are being hit with substantial fines and the Information …

Leading online retailer Amazon.com Inc. is bringing its Amazon PayCode service to the United States in a deal with The Western Union Co. that gives consumers the option to pay for Amazon purchases in cash. Seattle-based Amazon announced Wednesday that PayCode, which is already live in 19 countries, will be …

Global Payments Inc. completed its $21.5 billion all-stock merger with payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS). The deal cleared its last major hurdle when European Union antitrust regulators said they had no competition concerns, Reuters reported Tuesday. The merged company serves 3.5 million merchant locations and 1,300 financial institutions in more than 100 …

The warmth of late summer still bathes much of the country, but PayPal Holdings Inc. already has its eyes on the upcoming holiday spending season. The online commerce leader today unveiled a zero-interest financing promotion for its PayPal Credit service with a lowered purchase threshold. In addition to charging no …

CBD is all the rage these days as a newly available medicine that can alleviate everything from pain to insomnia, and now e-commerce platform provider Shopify Inc. is pitching its payment and other support services to U.S. CBD merchants. Ottawa, Ontario-based Shopify, which serves 800,000 merchants globally and has major …

Digital payments, combined with competition from nonbanks in payments, may cost banks as much as 15% of their global payments revenue, or $280 billion, says Accenture in its “2019 Global Payments Survey.” Released Monday, the survey of 240 retail and corporate payments executives across multiple countries suggests that global-payments revenue …