Person-to-Person Payments

To outsiders, Google’s mobile-payment services have experienced a few identity crises along the way. But the service now known as Google Pay represents much more than a rebranding, according to Jack Connors, the executive who heads commerce and merchant partnerships at Google, the primary subsidiary of Mountain View, Calif.-based Alphabet …

Wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. once again is expanding to more markets. This time, the company announced Monday, consumers in Ireland, Poland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are the latest to have access to the company’s online platform. MoneyGram’s online service is now available in 15 nations. In July, it expanded …

Users of Square Inc.’s Cash App can now buy and sell Bitcoin in all states, according to a tweet the company sent at mid-day Monday. The Bitcoin capability, which Square introduced in November as a pilot, is hardly a major business for the San Francisco-based payments company, but it is starting …

Bitcoin’s volatility may have dampened the payments industry’s enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency, but payments players are now reaping patent awards for Bitcoin-related inventions they filed years ago. The latest example is Intuit Inc., the Mountain View, Calif.-based company behind the popular Quicken and QuickBooks accounting programs for consumers and small …

Green Dot Corp. executives played up their “banking-as-a-service” platform Wednesday as the company reported strong second-quarter growth in most of its business lines, but they said little about the support they provide for Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay Cash service. Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot supplies the virtual prepaid card that customers …

With a focus on data privacy and security, a review of five mobile person-to-person payment services places Apple Pay at the top, Consumer Reports says. Released Monday, the report from the product-review magazine evaluated Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo, Square Inc.’s Cash app; Facebook Inc.’s Messenger, and Early …

A Web-site glitch involving The Independent Community Bankers of America’s bank subsidiary exposed personal data about thousands of credit card applicants for more than a year, according to a report. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that social-media titan Facebook Inc. has asked some of the nation’s largest …

The growth surge at the nation’s automated clearing house network shows no signs of slowing down. The payments system handled 5.68 billion transactions in the quarter ended June 30, a 6.2% increase year-over-year, according to numbers from Herndon, Va.-based NACHA, the network’s governing body. The network has now notched growth …

Chase, a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co., enabled cardless ATM access at nearly all of its 16,000 ATMs nationwide when consumers use Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay loaded with a Chase debit or Liquid card. In related news, Chase said Los Angeles-area consumers can use Chase Pay …

Will Square Inc. apply for a national banking charter, now that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has opened the door to financial-technology firms? As of late Wednesday, the answer remains unclear. “We’re really well-positioned to broaden access to the financial system, which is our core purpose,” said …