Pricing

Installment lending at the point of sale has drawn both startups and established companies, including banks, in recent years, but who among consumers finds that offer most attractive? The answer, according to New York City-based Auriemma Research, is consumers who pay with debit cards exclusively or say they prefer to. …

In a move to expand its tokenization services, Visa Inc. announced Tuesday that it has a deal to buy the token and smart-ticketing businesses of Rambus Inc., a Silicon Valley chip and software provider. The purchase price is $75 million in cash, according to a regulatory filing from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based …

Point-of-sale installment-loan provider Sezzle Inc. said its service is now available at “thousands” of online stores in Canada. SSI Group, a provider of payments-related software for the health-care industry, announced a capability that relies on machine learning to predict when providers will receive payments from payers. In related news, U.S. …

While legislators and regulators focused much of their attention on the Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency this week, tariffs on Chinese-made goods re-emerged in Washington as a threat that could raise prices for merchants and merchant acquirers. The Electronic Transactions Association payments trade group filed comments with the Office of the United States …

The Western Union Co. said it will enable Visa Inc.’s Visa Direct real-time push-payment service. The move follows the remittance-processing company’s announcement in late 2017 that it would adopt Mastercard Inc.’s rival service, Mastercard Send. Merchant processor VizyPay launched a program called Cash Discount 2.0, which calls for merchants to …

Most economic activity with Bitcoin remains on trading exchanges, but lately there is some evidence volume at merchants may be picking up. Bitcoin’s total merchant volume, in dollar terms, was $42.8 million in the week ended May 19, according to the latest figures from Chainalysis Inc., a New York City-based …

May became the first negative month of 2019 for payments stocks as worries about tariffs and an economic slowdown as a result gripped the wider market. Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. reported Monday that a 29-company group of transaction-processor stocks posted a mean return of negative 2.57% last month. Only …

Note to payments-company owners: now just might be the right time to sell. Buyers in 2019 have paid more for firms in the payment-tech space since at least 2010, according to a new analysis by 451 Research of more than 1,100 deals over nearly a decade. The median price to …

Klarna, the installment-payment specialist, has released an app that enables consumers to shop a variety of merchants and pay with Klarna without leaving the app. Announced Tuesday, the Klarna app presents the retailer’s site with a footer containing a Pay with Klarna button. When selecting that option, the shopper can pay …

Facing major consolidation among rival processors. Global Payments Inc. and Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) made it official Tuesday they are merging in an all-stock deal that values TSYS at $21.5 billion and will leave Global with 52% of the combined entity. The acquisition is expected to close in the …