Electronic Bill Payment

For the nation’s automated clearing house network, payments trends already under way before the coronavirus pandemic are still unfolding—only faster.  ACH payments initiated on the Web to pay bills and make other transfers totaled 2.1 billion in 2020’s fourth quarter, a 15.2% increase year-over-year, Nacha reported Thursday. Herndon, Va.-based Nacha …

Vanco Payment Solutions Inc., a payments provider specializing in the educational and faith-based sectors, said it acquired SmartcareOS LLC, a software provider for child-care centers. Terms were not announced.Entrust Corp., a provider of technology for identity, payments, and data protection, announced it acquired HyTrust Inc., a vendor of data-encryption, key …

Visa Inc. has dropped its year-old, $5.3-billion bid for the data network Plaid Inc. in the wake of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DoJ feared Visa could use Plaid’s links to financial institutions to stifle competition in the debit market, a contention Visa denied.The big drugstore chain Walgreen …

Retail sales, excluding the automotive and gasoline categories, grew 3% in the Oct. 11 to Dec. 24 period year-over-year, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. E-commerce sales volume grew 49% in the same period compared to the year-ago period.Some Walmart stores in north Alabama stopped accepting credit cards when the stores’ Internet service failed owing …

MoneyGram International Inc. said it is will “continue to monitor for any potential impact” from a recent lawsuit against cryptocurrency payments firm Ripple Labs and two top executives by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. MoneyGram has used Ripple’s foreign exchange blockchain since June 2019 to trade in four currencies, though the company …

Bill payment provider Plastiq launched cash payments, which allows users to make any payment through a linked bank account. Plastiq already enables bill payment via credit cards.InComm Payments has launched an App Store card in Taiwan in partnership with Apple Inc. The cards are being sold through 9,500 7-Eleven and FamilyMart stores on …

Household bill payments now total $2.75 trillion per year in the United States, accounting for 21% of all spending by U.S. consumers, according to a report released Thursday by doxo Inc., a provider of digital billing and payment services. The Seattle-based company’s research looks at bill payments via bank accounts …

Payments provider Paysafe Group Holdings Ltd. announced the U.S. launch of Paysafecash, a digital service that allow consumers to pay online in cash. The service is provided by InComm Payments’ Vanilla Direct payment network.Some 30% of consumers have signed up for peer-to-peer payment platforms in the past six months, according to a survey …

Online checkout provider Fast AF Inc. said its service is now available to 4 million e-commerce stores on the WooCommerce platform. Earlier this year, Fast received $20 million from investors, including Stripe.Spending on entertainment decreased for the week ending Dec. 6, compared to the week ending Dec. 8, 2019, with a 23.9% drop in debit …

Among the hardships some consumers are bearing these days, rent payments can loom large. This week, a housing-payments startup called Xspaced and payments provider Dwolla Inc. launched a feature that allows tenants to split rent payments into anywhere from two to four installments each month without accruing interest. Landlords still …