Competitive Strategies

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group announced Thursday that it plans to buy Stockholm-based Bambora Group from Nordic Capital for €1.5 billion ($1.73 billion). The acquisition will put under Ingenico’s roof a fast-growing international payments provider that gets 90% of its revenues on a recurring basis. Stockholm-based Bambora counts 110,000 businesses …

Prepaid card provider Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. said its revenue for the second quarter ended June 17 totaled $463.1 million, an 18.4% increase from $391.2 million in the same period in 2016. The company’s loss of $6.4 million improved from the $11.3 million loss last year. Blackhawk said Target Corp. will be …

The forecast for person-to-person mobile payments is a heady one. Expect double-digit growth through 2021, says research firm eMarketer Inc. As more consumers adopt the growing number of P2P payments services, the value of their P2P mobile transactions will increase to $244.03 billion, up 103% from the $120.38 predicted for …

U.S. Bancorp on Wednesday reported modestly higher results in its merchant-acquiring unit for the second quarter, while ATM manufacturer Diebold Nixdorf Inc. posted a $31 million loss after lowering its financial projections for the year. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp is the parent company of U.S. Bank and Elavon, the fifth-largest merchant …

The U.K. Treasury Ministry has said it is prohibiting merchants from assessing surcharges beginning January 1. Surcharges could be as much as 20% for purchases like a flight, the ministry said in a press release. In 2010, United Kingdom surcharges totaled 473 million pounds ($617 million). “Rip-off charges have no place in a modern Britain and …

In a deal that follows months of partnership agreements with other payments companies, PayPal Holdings Inc. on Monday said its PayPal service will become available as a payment method in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s Samsung Pay wallet. When it goes live, the link is expected to go a long way …

Some 19% of consumers participating in a recent survey said they have made a product purchase through Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo or a similar voice-controlled device within the past year. The finding is noted in the Future of Retail 2017 report from Chicago-based Walker Sands Communications, a digital marketing services and …

Mastercard Inc. acquired Brighterion Inc., a software company specializing in artificial intelligence that Mastercard expects will enhance its customer-experience and fraud-prevention services for customers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. PayPal Holdings Inc. and Visa Inc. extended to Europe a collaboration deal first announced last summer. Under the agreement, PayPal’s European operation will promote …

Just over 6 billion payment cards now bear the UnionPay logo, and in 2016 the Chinese network accounted for 43% of all general-purpose credit and debit cards in the world, up from 41% in 2015, according to new findings from London-based Retail Banking Research. RBR estimates the worldwide payment card …

Visa Inc.’s “Cashless Challenge” campaign to promote electronic payments is not finding much support from the ATM industry, to put it mildly. Last week, Visa announced the campaign, which will award up to $500,000 to 50 eligible U.S. food-service owners who convert their point-of-sale systems to electronic payments only. Visa …