Competitive Strategies

  ClearXchange, a bank-owned person-to-person payments company that launched a real-time payments service in June, says its merger with Early Warning Services LLC will assuage concerns about security as more consumers and financial institutions use the service. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Early Warning announced Monday it will buy San Francisco-based clearXchange for …

Known for its iPad-based point-of-sale system, Revel Systems said Friday it is making a mobile-commerce app available that merchants can use with their own brands. The app—available now for iOS and Android devices—enables merchants to more easily allow consumers to access product information, check loyalty data, place orders, and pay …

VeriFone Systems Inc. on Thursday introduced a new point-of-sale terminal product line that embraces design cues from consumer electronics. With the new terminal line, VeriFone also introduced its first app store. Dubbed Engage, the series of six devices, which includes two countertop terminals, two PIN pads, and two portable devices, …

For merchants these days, laying hands on a payment terminal with the needed EMV certifications is hard enough. Finding a certified device with built-in intelligence is even harder. Against that backdrop, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup called Poynt Co. on Thursday announced its Poynt Smart Terminal is the first such …

Top performing merchant acquirers make more than 103 basis points per transaction from merchants that process with them. That’s the finding from a survey of 37 independent sales organizations and acquirers conducted by Adil Consulting, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments-advisory firm. The median is 64 basis points. The top 20% of …

Diebold Inc., the second-largest U.S.-based ATM manufacturer after NCR Corp., disclosed over the weekend that it is in discussions to buy Paderborn, Germany-based ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf AG. North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold issued a statement Saturday confirming that it has a non-binding agreement with Wincor Nixdorf “regarding the key parameters of …

  First Data Corp.’s push to transform itself into a nimbler and more responsive payments processor continues on, with changes in its internal structure and approach to servicing merchants leading the way, says a First Data executive. In an interview Thursday with Digital Transactions News, Dan Charron, First Data executive …

  Add TransFirst Holdings Inc. to the growing roster of payments companies turning to the publicly traded stock markets to raise cash. The big merchant acquirer late Friday announced it filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of stock. The filing, …

  Processing titan First Data Corp.’s return to the stock market Thursday was met with a tepid response from investors in the Atlanta-based company. First Data, which turned to the market to raise money to pay off debt, priced its initial public offering late Wednesday at $16 per share, which …

  With a mission to offer as many free, or cheap, money-exchange services as possible, Uphold, a virtual funds and commodity platform, on Wednesday launched the first of a four-phase effort to expand its reach among consumers, merchants, charitable organizations and software developers. Uphold, the new name of Bitreserve, an …