News

July, 2018

• 24 July

  China’s Alipay Comes to More Than 50 Guess Stores As the Payment Service’s U.S. Expansion Continues

  

  Alipay, the China-based mobile and online payments service, has been active over the past year signing up U.S. merchants, and on Tuesday it announced its latest addition: apparel seller Guess? Inc., which will accept Alipay at more than 50 of its stores in New York City, Las Vegas, and California, …
• 24 July

  Many Consumers Shun P2P Payments To Avoid Fees, Though Few Services Charge Them

  

  The impending demise of Snap Inc.’s Snapcash service comes at a time when peer-to-peer payment services are growing rapidly, but many consumers still remain hesitant to use them. Some of these consumers are confused about pricing, new findings from Fiserv Inc. suggest. Fiserv, a Brookfield, Wis.-based financial-institution processor, on Monday …
• 24 July

  Carr’s Beyond Makes Acquisition and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/24/18

  

  Beyond, the payments company started by Robert O. Carr in 2017, purchased Boosterville for an undisclosed amount. The company provides a service that connects nonprofit organizations with local merchants. Boosterville has been rebranded Chip-In. Visa Inc. and wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. said they teamed up to enable cross-border remittances using …
• 23 July

  Snap Will Pull the Plug on its Snapcash P2P Service

  

  The crowded peer-to-peer payments market will soon become a little less crowded with the impending demise of Snap Inc.’s Snapcash service. Snapcash, which runs on Square Inc.’s P2P payments technology, will end Aug. 30, according to TechCrunch. The Silicon Valley news service said over the weekend that it discovered a …
• 23 July

  Cryptocurrency ‘Has Legs,” Payroc Says, So It’s Moving Toward a Merchant Acceptance Rollout Later This Year

  

  Issues like price volatility, pokey transaction times, and sheer reputational risk have left many processors and independent sales organizations on the sidelines when it comes to cryptocurrency acceptance. Many, but not all. The latest entrant, and the largest so far, in this nascent market is Payroc LLC, which later this …
• 23 July

  CardFlight in Boomtown Distribution Deal and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/23/18

  

  Payscout announced it purchased Paywire Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Payscout said it will expand Paywire’s education and health-care payments products to its merchants. Paywire’s tools consolidate payment software systems to reduce the scope of compliance and enhance security, Payscout said. Mobile point-of-sale specialist CardFlight Inc. lined up another distribution …
• 20 July

  Blockchain Startup MakeCents Tests a Payments Platform It Says Bypasses Networks

  

  With hopes of providing merchants with a lower-cost network to make and accept electronic payments, startup MakeCents announced Friday a test of its blockchain-based platform. New York City-based MakeCents says its decentralized platform is designed to “disrupt the $420 trillion global payments infrastructure by leveraging its blockchain technology to connect …
• 20 July

  Washlava Expands and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/20/18

  

  Washlava, a mobile-payments provider for laundromats, opened its second app-enabled laundromat, in New York City’s Queens borough. Washlava’s first such location opened in 2017 in Tampa, Fla. Payments provider Century Business Solutions announced an integration with Limo Anywhere, a point-of-sale software developer for the livery and limousine industry. Users of …
• 19 July

  Blockchain Investments To Grow by More Than 70% Annually, Researcher Predicts

  

  Global investment in blockchain technology will double this year compared to 2017, reaching $1.5 billion, according to a new report from International Data Corp. Investment will increase over the next five years at an annual rate of 73.2%, Framingham, Mass.-based IDC forecasts, reaching $11.7 billion in 2022. “Enthusiasm for blockchain …
• 19 July

  Walmart Shoppers More Likely To Use Apple Pay In Walmart Than Walmart Pay

  

  Walmart Inc. shoppers apparently aren’t as loyal to the giant retailer’s own mobile-payment service as they are to Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay. That’s one takeaway from the latest Mobile Pay Tracker from Auriemma Consulting Group. New York City-based ACG found that Walmart shoppers who use Apple Pay and have a …