Pundits have argued for weeks that the Covid-19 pandemic is shifting consumer payment habits away from anything that requires touching publicly available devices, and now that trend is showing up in that most mundane of activities, parking a car. To be sure, parking transactions even via a mobile app have …
May, 2020
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27 May
FIDO Alliance Launches Effort To Make Consumers Aware of Its Authentication Technology
After years of working with Internet firms and payments and tech companies to develop its authentication standards, the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance on Wednesday unveiled a Web site to familiarize consumers with its work and a symbol that indicates a Web site or device is using its technology. The …
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27 May
More Spend on Streaming Services and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/27/20
In its first “State of Spend” report, loyalty platform provider Cardlytics Inc., which develops offers for customers of some of the nation’s largest banks based on transaction data, says spending on streaming services rose 24% year-over-year in the March 12-April 29 period.Digital-payments and banking-services provider i2c Inc. said it is supporting Crypto.com as …
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26 May
ATM Counts Slip in the U.S., Canada, and China, New Study Shows
Led by the removal of 30,000 ATMs in China, the number of ATMs worldwide fell by 15,000 units, or 0.5%, in 2019 to 3.23 million machines from 3.25 million in 2018, according to new findings from London-based research firm RBR. The United States and Canada also saw declines in their …
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26 May
Walmart And Green Dot Beef up the MoneyCard With a New Savings Rate And Other Features
Looking to make their reloadable prepaid card more attractive as retailers and consumers alike deal with the uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic, Walmart Inc. and Green Dot Corp. on Tuesday said they are now offering a 2% rate on the Walmart MoneyCard’s associated savings account. The rate is applicable …
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26 May
ACI Platform Adds Wallet, Bill Pay APIs and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/26/20
ACI Worldwide Inc. said its real-time payments platform, UP Immediate Payments, has added application programming interfaces to ease integration with mobile wallets, e-commerce portals, bill-pay apps, social-media payments, and other applications.Payments provider Klarna AB said it has an agreement with musical-instrument maker Fender to provide a payment option offering four equal installments on …
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22 May
Many Small Businesses Clawing Back From Their Pandemic Lows, New Processor Data Show
A new report from CardFlight Inc., a point-of-sale technology provider serving more than 60,000 small businesses through its SwipeSimple service, shows merchant activity climbing back to just about where it was in early March when the Covid-19 outbreak began to hit the economy hard. Total sales in the SwipeSimple merchant …
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22 May
Rising Use of Digital Payments in Canada Is Likely a Permanent Trend, Interac Reports
Some results from Interac Corp. on Friday show the novel coronavirus and its attendant restrictions are pushing Canadian consumers and businesses toward digital payments, a trend the company says could have lasting effects. In April, e-Transfer transactions reached a record level at 61.3 million, according to the announcement from Interac, …
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22 May
Lending USA Launches Instant ID-Verification Tool and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/22/20
Point-of-sale lender LendingUSA LLC launched an instant ID-verification capability, which involves applicants using a smart phone to take and transmit photos of government-issued ID cards and selfie photos. The company says its merchant base exceeds 8,000 nationally.A startup called Skyflow said it has raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round aimed at developing …
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21 May
Citcon Extends Its Reach for China-Based Wallets Via Tulip, a Tech Provider for Luxury Brands
Citcon USA LLC said Tulip Retail Inc., a provider of mobile apps used by store clerks at major retail chains, will deploy Citcon’s mobile-payments technology to enable acceptance of Alipay, WeChat Pay, and UnionPay QR. A 5-year-old startup company, Citcon specializes in enabling U.S. merchants to accept China-based mobile-payments apps. …