Competitive Strategies

Visa Inc. announced Monday the debut of Visa Next, a platform for issuers and issuer-processors that enables such options as the ability to create new digital card accounts on demand and instantly activate and tokenize digital accounts for e-commerce and mobile-wallet use. Visa Next offers a series of application programming …

Apriva LLC, a payments provider for unattended retail, said its network will support the viv mobile-payments app from Vagabond, allowing college students to use virtual campus cards for vending-machine purchases. In related news, Apriva said it will support mobile payments for AveriGo LLC, a software provider for the vending and …

Allied Irish Banks p.l.c. and processor First Data Corp. formed a joint venture to acquire a 96% stake in Payzone, operator of Ireland’s largest retail payment network, for about €100 million ($112.5 million) including debt. AIB will own 75% of the joint venture and First Data 25%, according to The Irish …

In a sign that at least some U.S. wireless carriers haven’t given up on their ambitions in mobile payments, T-Mobile US Inc. on Thursday launched its T-Mobile Money service nationwide. But the service, which began as a pilot in November, goes beyond payments offerings to include some traditional banking services …

American Express Co. reported first-quarter U.S. card-billed business of $195.5 billion, up 7% year-over-year. International volume slipped 1% to $100.2 billion, bringing AmEx’s total billed business to $295.7 billion, a 4% increase from $283.8 billion a year earlier. Discount revenue rose 5% to $6.2 billion. AmEx said its average worldwide …

Coffee, doughnut, and breakfast sandwich aficionados can now pay with credit and debit cards and even cash and still earn points in Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc.’s DD Perks loyalty program at more than 1,000 test stores, Dunkin’ announced this week. DD Perks is one of the nation’s largest rewards programs, …

In advance of a key European regulation taking effect late this summer, San Francisco-based payments provider Stripe Inc. has acquired Touchtech Payments, a developer of authentication software. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed. Founded in 2014, Dublin-based Touchtech specializes in code that establishes customer identities for financial …

Mobile-authentication technology provider Payfone Inc. raised $24 million in a funding round led by credit-reporting agency TransUnion with participation from previous investor Synchrony Financial and two institutional investors. TransUnion said it will integrate Payfone’s Trust Platform and Trust Score with its identity products, and become Payfone’s primary partner for regulated …

CardFlight Inc. is adding point-of-sale terminals to its roster of SwipeSimple-compatible products with the launch Tuesday of SwipeSimple Terminal. This puts the SwipeSimple POS software on more devices in addition to tablets, personal computers, and mobile devices. More than 50,000 merchants currently use SwipeSimple, CardFlight says. SwipeSimple Terminal initially is …

The Zelle person-to-person payments service continues to boom for one of its biggest participants, Bank of America Corp., where transaction volume more than doubled in the first quarter. BofA reported Tuesday that its customers sent or received 58.1 million Zelle transactions via email addresses or mobile-phone numbers, up 103% from …