Competitive Strategies

Google Inc. gave a progress report about its Google Checkout payment services launched in mid-2006 and processors and banks heavily involved in the payments business reported third-quarter earnings last week. ? Search-engine leader Google's Google Checkout online payment service added PetSmart, Drugstore.com, Shoebuy.com, and the NHL Store as merchants in …

BB&T Corp. this week introduced a new mobile-banking service in which the Southeastern regional bank leaves little to chance. The bank will offer consumers three user interfaces for two-way interaction with BB&T through their cell phones or other mobile devices. And, in contrast to most banks' tech announcements, BB&T is …

Some of the big banks that connect to the SVPCO Image Payments Network are starting to use the system to send and clear items electronically for other banks they serve in a move that could increase volume on the image-exchange network and allow member financial institutions to earn more fee …

PayPal Inc.'s efforts to lessen its dependence on transaction traffic supplied by the online auctions run by parent eBay Inc. are paying off. Some 44% of the $12.2 billion the San Jose, Calif.-based e-commerce processor handled in the third quarter came from off-eBay merchants, according to statistics filed by eBay …

Mobile-banking and payments application developer Firethorn Holdings LLC scored a coup this week when Verizon Wireless, the nation's No. 2 mobile-phone carrier, announced it had picked Firethorn as a strategic partner for mobile banking and would preload Firethorn's system onto newly issued phones. The agreement means the nation's two largest …

A new plan at NACHA to merge elements of the automated clearing house network with elements of check imaging could allow banks to clear checks more cost-efficiently but may also turn out to be a solution to a problem that's solving itself, experts say. Some 20 financial institutions, ranging from …

The already competitive world of electronic bill payments heated up this week with the announcement that wire-transfer leader The Western Union Co. and payment-technology provider Yodlee Inc. together will provide online bill-payment services, including expedited bill payments. Their pitch: direct access to more than 4,000 utilities, financial institutions, mortgage companies, …

Data Insecurity Part 8 Few payment innovations have produced the stark schizophrenia that we are experiencing with mobile commerce. Normally somber business types are rubbing their hands together at the prospects of reaching consumers on a one-to-one basis, online, all the time, anywhere they happen to be. Meanwhile, typically apprehensive …

A merchant trade group and at least one bank card network are exchanging fire again this week over the fees merchants pay to accept cards. Triggering the skirmish this time was a press release and report prepared by the Merchants Payments Coalition as a follow-up to a July 19 Congressional …

For all the publicity surrounding merchant dissatisfaction with payment-acceptance costs, the issue doesn't rank high with online retailers looking into alternatives to bank-issued credit and debit cards, a payment-industry researcher says. E-commerce merchants are adopting, or investigating, such payment providers as PayPal Inc. and Bill Me Later Inc. hoping most …