For years, payments providers like Square Inc. have mined the small- and micro-merchant market by providing inexpensive and simple attachments, or so-called dongles, that hook up to smart phones and can be used to swipe or read the chips on cards. Now comes the next step: card acceptance using no …
Read More »Gift Card Spending Doubles and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/8/20
Consumers spent 7% more on gift cards during the 2019 holiday shopping season than in the same period in 2018, doubling the 3.4% gain seen in 2018 over 2017, according to data from prepaid program manager Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc., which did not release absolute spending numbers.The U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau …
Read More »Square Raises Its Price for Instant and Same-Day Transfers to 1.5%
In its latest pricing change, Square Inc. disclosed Tuesday that it will raise the cost of instant and same-day transfers from its merchants’ Square balances to their bank accounts to 1.5% per transfer from the previous rate of 1%. The change, announced on Square’s blog, took effect Tuesday for new …
Read More »MoneyGram Notes Growth and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/6/20
MoneyGram International Inc. announced online transactions grew more than 70% year-over-year between Dec. 1 and Dec. 25, a record growth rate for that period. The money-transfer provider, which did not report the actual transaction volume, said 80% of the transactions were initiated on a mobile device.PayPal Holdings Inc. has closed on its …
Read More »Payment Stocks Sputtered Toward 2019’s End, but They Still Outperformed the Market for the Year
Payment-company stocks lost ground as a group in December and didn’t match the major market indexes in the fourth quarter, but they still bested the indexes for all of 2019, according to a new report. Twenty-six electronic-transaction processor stocks monitored by Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. posted a negative mean …
Read More »eBay Unfazed by Payment Critics and other Digital Transactions New briefs from 1/3/20
An eBay Inc. executive said the online marketplace will not back down on the introduction of its Managed Payments program in the face of criticism from some sellers regarding the program’s costs and policies. The company introduced the new payments program, which relies on gateway services from Adyen N.V., last year after years …
Read More »New Fed Data Underscores How Far Electronic Payments Have Eaten Into Checks
It’s no secret that electronic payment methods have systematically eaten away at check volume in the United States, but now new data from the Federal Reserve shows just how far that trend has gone. A total of 16 billion checks were written in 2018 for a total value of $26.2 …
Read More »Mercado Pago Adds PayPal Checkout Option and other Digital Transactions New briefs from 12/31/19
PayPal Holdings Inc. announced it has signed a commercial agreement with MercadoLibre, a major e-commerce marketplace in Latin America. As part of the deal, PayPal will become a payment choice in the Mercado Pago online checkout for customers in Brazil and Mexico, a move PayPal says could lead to PayPal users getting …
Read More »Citcon Prevails in Source Code Lawsuit and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/26/19
Citcon USA LLC said it prevailed in a lawsuit against Canada-based RiverPay Inc. over allegations of misappropriation of source code trade secrets. Citcon, which helps North American merchants integrate Chinese mobile wallet acceptance, sued RiverPay in 2018 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California because it said RiverPay …
Read More »OTI Raises $2.5 Million and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/24/19
On Track Innovations Ltd., a provider of payments technology based on near-field communication, announced it raised $2.5 million in a private placement of shares.Digital-banking and payments-processing technology provider i2c Inc. launched a mobile app and cardholder Web site it says are designed to help persons who have color-blindness conduct digital banking.TriumphPay, a …
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