Competitive Strategies

The e-commerce platform BigCommerce Pty Ltd. on Wednesday announced two new supported payment methods, including PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo service. With the addition of Venmo, Austin-based BigCommerce gave a big lift to PayPal’s strategy  to find revenue for what has been a fast-growing but free peer-to-peer payment service, though merchant pricing …

Sionic Mobile, a provider of payment and rewards technology, announced a single account through which users can pay a range of providers through mobile devices or in-car commerce. Gas Pos, which sells EMV-acceptance services to fuel retailers, announced a $1 million investment from Merus Capital, a venture-capital firm. Bluefin Payment …

Following through on plans disclosed earlier this year, the Federal Reserve on Tuesday formally unveiled the U.S. Faster Payments Council, an industry group charged with collaborating to spur the adoption of faster payments and identify market opportunities. The 22 inaugural members range from retailing giant Walmart Inc. to Visa Inc. …

As the holiday shopping season swings into gear, look for more consumers using their smart phones for shopping—but not so much for making a mobile payment, says GfK, a Germany-based consulting firm, in its latest FutureBuy research. Forty-five percent of all U.S. consumers rank mobile devices, including smart phones and …

Poynt Co., a startup supplier of intelligent payment devices, argues so-called smart terminals should have a common operating system like smart phones do. And in announcing a $100 million funding round on Tuesday, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company also argued it should be the one to provide that OS. Investors …

The Federal Reserve formally announced the creation of the U.S. Faster Payments Council, an industry organization intended to promote the adoption of secure faster-payment systems through industry collaboration and education. The 22 founding members include payment card networks, banks, Walmart Inc., and automated clearing house network governing body NACHA. The group is …

Addressing doubts among at least some sellers, eBay Inc. seller advocate Jim “Griff” Griffith said sellers “can put [their] consternation aside” regarding the marketplace giant’s new managed-payments program, which will not include traditional eBay payment method PayPal until next year. Online payments provider Stripe Inc. agreed to use Visa Inc.’s push-payment …

Fallback fraud, an offshoot of the counterfeit fraud that EMV chip cards are meant to reduce, declined over the past year, according to new findings from Auriemma Consulting Group. Fallback fraud refers to fraud resulting from would-be EMV payments resorting to the credit or debit card’s back-up magnetic stripe because …

PayFacto Inc., the new name for a combination of what had been three separate companies, launched with a mission to cultivate merchants with a trio of payments services. Montreal-based PayFacto is the result of combining B2Billing, CT-Payments, and Supreme Payments. Each of the Canadian firms had different specialties that PayFacto …

The major U.S. payment card networks have been trying to set up shop to process domestic transactions in mainland China for years, only to encounter government resistance. But American Express Co. announced a breakthrough Friday with a deal to become the first overseas network to win an OK to operate …