Ever since mobile payments first captured the public imagination four years ago with the launch of Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay, experts have debated why usage of the iOS and Android wallets has fallen short of the original, lofty expectations. Some speculate that usage would rise markedly if the mobile wallets …
Read More »AmEx Launches Virtual Payment Service and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/15/18
Boosted by its 2017 acquisition of Singular Payments, merchant processor Payment Data Systems Inc. said its credit card transactions rose 109% year-over-year in the third quarter and dollar volume rose 112%. Revenues increased 80% to $6.47 million from $3.59 million in 2017’s third quarter. The company reported a net loss of …
Read More »BigCommerce Gives a Lift to Venmo’s Commerce Strategy As It Adds the P2P Service And Masterpass
The e-commerce platform BigCommerce Pty Ltd. on Wednesday announced two new supported payment methods, including PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo service. With the addition of Venmo, Austin-based BigCommerce gave a big lift to PayPal’s strategy to find revenue for what has been a fast-growing but free peer-to-peer payment service, though merchant pricing …
Read More »MoneyGram Hit by Government Settlement, Declining Revenues
Shares of wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. tumbled 29% Friday morning after the company reported declining revenues and a $125 million settlement with the federal government over lax fraud controls at some agent locations. The settlement involves “allegations that the company failed to take steps required under a 2009 Federal …
Read More »Dorsey Sees Square’s New Terminal Displacing ‘Dinosaur’ Devices on Merchant Countertops
Square Inc. on Wednesday played up its recent launch of an important new hardware product and celebrated what it called its first quarter of profitability under generally accepted accounting principles. While executives did not discuss sales numbers for Square Terminal, a $399 touchscreen-equipped handheld device the San Francisco-based company released …
Read More »The Zelle P2P Payment Service Posts 83% Transaction Growth in the Third Quarter
The Zelle person-to-person payment service continued to gain traction in the third quarter. Zelle Network reported Tuesday that it processed $32 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30 on 116 million transactions. The latest figures represent a year-over-year growth rate of 67% in payment value and 83% in transactions. …
Read More »PayPal Scores an AmEx Tie-Up And Notches a Strong Quarter, Though Challenges Loom
In a reversal of its past practice, PayPal Holdings Inc. began two years ago working with competitive and semi-competitive partners, and on Thursday it added the last major U.S. card network to that list by announcing a tie-up with American Express Co. PayPal executives also disclosed the company’s performance numbers …
Read More »Eye on P2P: Venmo Jacks up Its Fee for Instant Transfers; BofA Touts Zelle Results
In the hotly contested market for person-to-person transactions, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo unit has rarely made a misstep. But over the weekend the popular service said it will raise its fee from 25 cents to 1% for so-called instant transfers users make to move money from their Venmo account to …
Read More »Dear Diary: Why Did Payment Transactions Decline in October 2017?
Unless you’re talking about check-writing or cash usage, just about every measure of transactions and volumes in payments is up, up, up these days. But a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta says consumers actually made fewer payments in October 2017 than they did a year earlier. …
Read More »Shopify Tries a Store Strategy and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 10/12/18
E-commerce processor Shopify Inc. opened its first brick-and-mortar “entrepreneur space” in downtown Los Angeles. The site will provide in-person support, training, and education to Shopify merchants, and the company’s suite of retail hardware products will be available. Shopify says it has 10,000 merchants in L.A. and 80,000 in California. Cybersecurity …
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