Competitive Strategies

Users of Square Inc.’s Cash App can now buy and sell Bitcoin in all states, according to a tweet the company sent at mid-day Monday. The Bitcoin capability, which Square introduced in November as a pilot, is hardly a major business for the San Francisco-based payments company, but it is starting …

The boycott of Visa credit cards by The Kroger Co.’s Foods Co chain in central and northern California began Tuesday as planned, but the parent company still won’t say whether the boycott will be expanded to its many other units. Citing what it calls high costs to accept Visa credit …

Citcon USA LLC, a cross-border mobile-payment and marketing company, said its service will be enabled at various Mall of America merchandise shops and guest services and in the Nickelodeon Universe theme park inside the Bloomington, Minn., mall. Citcon’s service enables Chinese tourists to find merchants that accept Alipay and WeChat Pay. …

Point-of-sale system provider POSaBIT Inc. announced nine stores of the Starbuds recreational marijuana-dispensary chain will use its POS system. Though POSaBIT, in its press release, did not disclose specifically which payments Starbuds will accept via the POS system, its Web site lists debit card and cryptocurrency acceptance as alternatives to …

One reason China’s Ant Financial Services Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd. are interested in facilitating mobile payments for Chinese travelers in foreign markets, including the United States, is that both companies are topping out in their home market. Combined, Ant’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay controlled an estimated $15.5 trillion …

With First Data Corp.’s stock on the rise, KKR & Co. Inc., the investment firm that controls most of the payment processor’s voting shares, is planning a secondary stock offering that will reduce its stake but still leave it firmly in control. First Data announced Monday that an affiliate of …

The FBI privately warned banks on Friday that cybercriminals are preparing a big “ATM cashout” operation, a choreographed global scheme in which fraudsters hack a bank or payment processor, plant malware that attempts to disable banks’ ATM withdrawal limits and related transaction controls, and use cloned payment cards to withdraw potentially …

The Department of Finance Canada on Thursday issued its latest merchant-friendly announcement regarding payment cards, this one disclosing agreements with Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. for an average 10-basis-point reduction in credit card interchange for small and mid-size businesses to take effect in 2020. The department also said American Express …

More than 252 million iPhone owners globally use Apple Pay, a figure that equates to 31% of the active iPhone base, says Loup Ventures, a Minneapolis-based venture-capital firm. A year ago, the figure was 25%. That growth mostly is coming from international consumers, who Loup Ventures says account for 85% …

Bitcoin’s volatility may have dampened the payments industry’s enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency, but payments players are now reaping patent awards for Bitcoin-related inventions they filed years ago. The latest example is Intuit Inc., the Mountain View, Calif.-based company behind the popular Quicken and QuickBooks accounting programs for consumers and small …