Competitive Strategies

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday announced its Walmart Pay mobile wallet is now available in all of its 4,612 U.S. stores in all 50 states. The rollout’s completion comes about seven months after the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing behemoth introduced the product and about 10 weeks after first making the app …

• U.S. Bank said customers can now make free, real-time person-to-person payments via Early Warning Services LLC’s clearXchange network; the bank charged a $6.95 fee for real-time payments when it went live on clearXchange earlier this year. • Processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc. announced top-level executive changes with president …

The password is one of the oldest authentication tools known to man, and now it is rapidly becoming the least respected among security experts for use online or in-app. Consumers’ use of easily guessed codes, coupled with a recent barrage of data breaches, has these experts predicting passwords will fade …

• American Express Co. plans to roll out an online loan platform this year that will challenge other small-business lenders, including Square Inc. and On Deck Capital Inc., Bloomberg reported. • Independent sales organization Pace Payment Systems announced it is working with @Pay LLC on an integrated text-to-pay service. • …

During the last 20 years, I’ve worked for, consulted for, partnered with, or analyzed hundreds of payments companies and thousands of other firms that are in some way connected with payments companies, either as customers, prospects, or partners. Many of those companies have been highly successful, some explosively so. Others …

• ATM network operator Cardtronics plc, formerly Cardtronics Inc., completed its plan to re-domicile in the United Kingdom following approval of the plan by shareholders June 28. Cardtronics’ North American headquarters will remain in Houston, while its European headquarters will be in London. The company’s stock will continue to trade …

Speaking of merchant-network skirmishes, fighting between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. broke out anew last month when, citing high acceptance costs, Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit announced that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores through a gradual phase-out set to begin July 18. Wal-Mart’s carefully phrased …

• In a huge legal development for the payment card industry, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a lower court’s 2013 approval of a $7.25 billion settlement of a merchant class-action lawsuit accusing Visa, MasterCard, and some banks of antitrust violations in setting credit card interchange. The appellate …

• In a huge legal development for the payment card industry, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a lower court’s 2013 approval of a $7.25 billion settlement of a merchant class-action lawsuit accusing Visa, MasterCard, and some banks of antitrust violations in setting credit card interchange. The appellate …

Citigroup Inc. on Wednesday announced it has struck a definitive agreement to sell its institutional Prepaid Card Services unit to Munich, Germany-based Wirecard AG. The deal is significant in that it will give Europe’s second-largest payment processor a toehold in the U.S., and it marks the retreat by another big …