Person-to-Person Payments

  PayPal Holdings Inc. is jumping into the free personalized person-to-person payments game with the launch of PayPal.Me. Announced Tuesday, PayPal.Me enables consumers to create personalized permanent links to share with others. When clicked, the links then present a Web page for senders to select the amount and the payment …

PayPal Inc. plans to buy online wire-transfer provider Xoom Corp. in an all-cash deal valued at $890 million, the companies announced late Wednesday. The planned acquisition comes less than three weeks before PayPal’s expected spin-off from eBay Inc. and will bring under PayPal’s wing a highly regarded rival in the …

Social-media network Facebook Inc. says its Messenger person-to-person payments service is available nationwide beginning Tuesday. Messenger is Facebook’s direct-messaging service. In March, the network launched the P2P service to a few locations. David Marcus, Facebook vice president of messaging, made the announcement of general availability today on Twitter. Both senders …

The gold rush in payments-startup financing that began about a year ago is likely to be even bigger in 2015, according to the latest report from CB Insights, a New York City-based investment-research firm. Last year set a record for startup funding, with $2.23 billion pouring into new payments companies. …

When Acculynk Inc. introduced its Payzur person-to-person payments service two years ago, it saw it as a way of leveraging the company’s virtual PIN-pad technology along with PIN-debit networks to enable faster, guaranteed payments between individuals. n Last month, MasterCard laid down a gauntlet with its MasterCard Send, a back-end …

The clearXchange payments service owned by five of the nation’s six largest banks on Monday announced a real-time payments service that includes not only its original person-to-person payments franchise but also business-to-consumer payments. Mike Kennedy, chief executive of San Francisco-based clearXchange, tells Digital Transactions News that the system is live …

Now that companies like Dwolla Inc., Facebook Inc., Microsoft Inc., and Square Inc. are making headlines with actual or expected services for a booming person-to-person payments market, financial institutions are scrambling to come up with solutions for their customers. One popular option is to leverage the automated clearing house network, …

Payments executives today are trying to assess the legacy of Benjamin Lawsky, New York State’s controversial top financial regulator who proposed the first regulations on virtual currencies. Lawsky, who became superintendent of the state’s Department of Financial Services in 2011, announced Wednesday that he plans to step down in June …

MasterCard Inc. on Tuesday launched a person-to-person payment service in the United States that will allow debit card holders to send money to any other individual with a debit card account, regardless of the card brand and with the money arriving nearly instantaneously. The new service, dubbed MasterCard Send, also …

By Jim Daly Wire-transfer market leader The Western Union Co. issued a brief statement early Wednesday afternoon saying reports that it is in early talks to buy rival MoneyGram International Inc. “are not accurate.” The statement appeared to quickly deflate the two companies’ stock prices, especially MoneyGram’s, which had soared …