Competitive Strategies

Shortly after the former Sage Payment Solutions rebranded as Paya early this year, company president Greg Cohen said the merchant processor would play a “value game,” not a low-price game. Following that strategy, Paya on Wednesday unveiled Paya Connect, a platform for software firms and independent sales organizations to create …

With technology companies increasingly eyeing financial services, a survey from Brookfield, Wis.-based bank processor Fiserv Inc. indicates 55% of consumers feel comfortable using a company like Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google to pay bills, up from 40% in 2017. Thirty-nine percent would take out a loan from a tech-company service, …

Marks Jewelers is the latest merchant to begin accepting digital currencies, including Bitcoin and Litecoin. Announced Tuesday by e-commerce platform Shopping Cart Elite, which is supplying the enabling acceptance technology, the move means the Montgomeryville, Pa.-based jeweler also accepts Bitcoin Diamond, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Dash, Ethereum, and Zcoin for …

Payments-networking provider Transaction Network Services has agreed to acquire Advam, an Australian provider of unattended and e-commerce payments processing. Terms were not disclosed. E-commerce technology provider tru Payments LLC launched tru Shop-by-Payment, a cloud-based service that lets consumers shop for a new car and auto financing at the same time. Bill-payment specialist …

In the hotly contested market for person-to-person transactions, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo unit has rarely made a misstep. But over the weekend the popular service said it will raise its fee from 25 cents to 1% for so-called instant transfers users make to move money from their Venmo account to …

American Express Co. said it is using the Ethoca Eliminator service from chargeback-mitigation specialist Ethoca, which can help prevent disputes for U.S. merchants by providing more detailed transaction information in real time to AmEx card users when they spot an unrecognized charge. Blockchain-payments provider BitPay said merchants now can receive their …

Unless you’re talking about check-writing or cash usage, just about every measure of transactions and volumes in payments is up, up, up these days. But a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta says consumers actually made fewer payments in October 2017 than they did a year earlier. …

With the economy still humming along, three of the nation’s biggest banks on Friday reported healthy increases in third-quarter payment card purchase volumes. JPMorgan Chase & Co., owner of the nation’s biggest bank-run merchant acquirer, posted $343.8 billion in merchant-processing volume, a 14% increase from $301.6 billion in 2017’s third …

E-commerce processor Shopify Inc. opened its first brick-and-mortar “entrepreneur space” in downtown Los Angeles. The site will provide in-person support, training, and education to Shopify merchants, and the company’s suite of retail hardware products will be available. Shopify says it has 10,000 merchants in L.A. and 80,000 in California. Cybersecurity …

Consumers with PayPal accounts will be able to withdraw cash from, and deposit cash into, these accounts at participating U.S. Walmart Inc. locations, Walmart announced Thursday. The deal means PayPal accountholders will pay $3 per cash-in and cash-out transaction. San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal says this is the first time its …