News

May, 2018

• 7 May

  An Airline Group Is Developing a Payment System That Would Bypass the Card Networks

  

  An airline trade group has teamed up with Germany’s Deutsche Bank to develop a payment system that would bypass the credit card networks, potentially saving users billions in interchange. The proposal comes from the International Air Transport Association, which says it has 280 members representing 83% of air traffic. The …
• 7 May

  Syncapay’s Acquisition Ambition Begins With Disbursements

  

  A new entry in the arena for payments-related acquisitions, Syncapay, is targeting specialists in disbursements and payouts. Plano, Texas-based Syncapay debuted last week with the intent to acquire payments companies that could benefit from shared services, while retaining the autonomy that differentiates them. “We are not looking at doing a …
• 7 May

  A Disappointed Investor Sues Ripple, Alleging Its XRP Is a Security, Not a Digital Currency

  

  Ripple Labs Inc. has notched a number of successes lately for its distributed-ledger technology, but now it finds its cryptocurrency, known as XRP, is caught up in a lawsuit that reflects a larger debate over whether such digital tokens constitute securities. Ryan Coffey, an investor who bought XRP in January …
• 4 May

  Risk Levels Surge for E-Commerce And for Payment Processors, Finds ThreatMetrix

  

  E-commerce attacks increased 93% in the first quarter of 2018 in comparison to the same quarter a year ago, finds the Q1 2018 Cybercrime Report from ThreatMetrix, a unit of LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Based on an analysis of 210 million attacks ThreatMetrix detected and stopped on behalf of its clients, …
• 4 May

  The Same Old Problems Plague the ‘Pays’ As Adoption Levels Show ‘Signs of Slippage’

  

  Ever since Apple Pay emerged in 2014, experts have scratched their heads over the general failure of contactless mobile wallets to catch on faster with U.S. consumers. Now comes research indicating how wallet sponsors might turn things around by focusing on what consumers are most looking for in wallet services …
• 4 May

  Google Pay Coming to Browsers and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/4/18

  

  Google announced that Google Pay users soon will be able to use the service to make purchases within the Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. Once a card has been added to a Google Pay account, users don’t need to re-enter their payment info. If using Chrome, Google Pay can automatically …
• 3 May

  Evertec Revenue Increases and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/3/18

  

  Amazon.com Inc. said Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills is generally available to U.S. merchants and developers. The service enables consumers using Alexa, the voice assistant embedded in Amazon’s Echo devices, to pay for purchases with information already stored in their Amazon accounts. Alexa users grant the merchant’s skill permission to …
• 3 May

  Square Reports Advances With Larger Merchants And Double-Digit Growth in Key Metrics

  

  Square Inc. reported a strong first quarter late Wednesday, but you wouldn’t know it on Wall Street, where its shares were trading down slightly Thursday morning at just over $47. It closed at $48.70 Wednesday. Despite double-digit increases year-over-year in gross payment volume and net and adjusted revenue, the San …
• 2 May

  Beyond P2P: As Rival Venmo Moves In-Store, Zelle Eyes a Big Move on Disbursements

  

  Since its official launch last June, Zelle has been all about carving out a healthy piece of the burgeoning person-to-person payments market for financial institutions. Now it’s promoting another service that leverages its network but could prove far more lucrative: disbursements. When companies, associations, or other organizations need to pay …
• 2 May

  Syncapay Launches and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 5/2/18

  

  Apple Inc. said revenue from its services, which includes Apple Pay, the App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud, surpassed $9 billion in its second quarter, besting by more than $2 billion the total a year ago. “Apple Pay continues its strong growth with active users more than doubling and transactions …