Competitive Strategies

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is giving customers another reason both to take its credit cards and use its Walmart Pay mobile wallet by enabling new cardholders to use their credit accounts immediately upon approval via Walmart Pay rather than having to wait for a plastic card to come in the mail. …

Consumers have a new way to get, and pay for, clean clothes with the debut of Washlava. As announced this week, Washlava offers consumers a smart-phone app they can use to reserve washers and dryers, and then pay for that use. The service, another indicator of the increasing incidence of …

With demand for tokenized payment transactions anticipated to explode in the coming years with the growth of connected devices through the Internet of Things as well as mobile and online payments, Visa Inc. reported Wednesday that it has signed 13 new companies to participate in its token service provider program. …

• Tablet-based point-of-sale provider Revel Systems launched Revel University, an online training service for merchants using its technology. • Payments provider BlueSnap Inc. said merchants using its Powered Buy Platform now can accept Apple Pay transactions. • Nineteen percent of consumers used person-to-person payments through a financial institution in the past 30 days in a …

As the U.S. payments system collectively ambles toward real-time payments, proponents will have to ensure its benefits outweigh those of existing expedited payments options. That’s one recommendation from the “Justifying Real-Time Payments in the United States” report released Tuesday by Maynard, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The report examines the …

• Groundwork, a payments service for school sports, launched its service to let parents use bank accounts or cards to make payments for team expenses. Teams pay a fee of 2% plus 30 cents, with an additional charge for card payments, with all payment communication with parents managed by the Groundwork …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Chipmaker Gemalto N.V. and risk-management firm ThreatMetrix Inc. announced that they are jointly providing online authentication technology to banks, payment-service providers, payment networks, and financial startups. Through a single vendor relationship, the companies’ customers can get access to ThreatMetrix’s Digital Identity Network and Amsterdam-based Gemalto’s various authentication …

Gift cards issued by retailers are heating up, according to the latest research from Mercator Advisory Group. Total loads grew 6% in 2016 to reach $133.9 billion, Mercator’s Ben Jackson tells Digital Transactions News. That performance follows a decline in loads the year before. The research, which covers closed-loop gift …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A landmark anti-steering case against American Express Co. is going to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorneys general from 11 states have asked the high court to review a decision handed down in September by a federal appeals court that upheld AmEx’s policy of banning merchants from

• Washlava, a startup focusing on self-service laundromats, release its mobile app that enables users to reserve an LG Giant commercial washing machine and pay for the use via the app after tapping the phone against the machine. • Vending-payments specialist USA Technologies Inc. said the amount of contactless payments for laundry …