Competitive Strategies

Leading retail ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics plc announced expanded agreements Tuesday with the big drug-store chain Walgreens and banking giant Citigroup Inc. that will put Citi’s brand on more than 1,000 Cardtronics ATMs in Walgreens and Duane Reade stores in some key markets, including New York City and …

The announcements about new point-of-sale and mobile-payment systems and related services came fast and furious Monday at the National Retail Federation’s annual Big Show underway in New York City. • Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and independent sales organization Total Merchant Services Inc. announced the availability of TMS’s Groovv POS Flex, …

• Payment technology provider MagTek Inc. introduced tDynamo, a compact terminal that accepts chip and magnetic-stripe payment cards as well as contactless transactions in either fixed or mobile configurations. • USA Technologies Inc. said its ePort Connect Platform’s G0-S series has been certified on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. USAT’s ePort devices …

The price of Bitcoin, which soared to heady heights at the end of 2016 only to drop somewhat over the last two weeks, has been much on the minds of payments observers looking to the digital currency as an intriguing new way to pay. But is Bitcoin a medium of …

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group is among many payments companies making announcements Monday at the National Retail Federation’s annual Big Show in New York City. France-based Ingenico says its ePayments division and its research arm Ingenico Labs now offer payment-enabled messaging bots for e-commerce merchants. Bots are an artificial intelligence …

Marketing campaigns delivered to shoppers’ smart phones have long been seen as a promising way to drive both in-store traffic and mobile payments, and during the recent holiday season one company ran a test to find out just what kind of results retailers could expect. Swirl Networks Inc., a 6-year-old …

First Data Corp.’s newest division, the Integrated Solutions Group, is designed to entice software developers to create tools that hook into the giant processor’s payments platform. Announced Friday, the division is meant to foster ties between the Atlanta-based processor and independent software vendors, value-added resellers, software developers, and systems integrators. …

By Jim Daly @DTPaymentNews JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s merchant-processing subsidiary surpassed $1 trillion in payment volume last year, the New York City-based banking giant reported Friday. Chase Commerce Solutions, the No. 2 U.S. merchant acquirer after First Data Corp. and the biggest acquirer owned by a banking firm, posted merchant-processing …

• Bank of America Corp. reported combined credit and debit card purchase volume of $134.3 billion in the fourth quarter, up 4% from $129.5 billion a year earlier and up 6% when adjusted for earlier divestitures. • Wells Fargo & Co. reported debit card purchase volume of $78.4 billion in the fourth …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Bank and non-bank players alike are scrambling to claim a share of the peer-to-peer payments market, and a report released this week explains why: adoption is hot and getting hotter. Slightly more than one-third of U.S. consumers made at least one transaction last year, up from …