Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• In a bid to reach cash-only customers, Amazon.com Inc. launched Amazon Cash, a service that gives users a barcode they can store in their smart phone or print and bring to a participating store to add cash to their Amazon balance. Participating stores include CVS, Speedway, Kum & Go, and Sheetz.
• Deluxe Corp. has completed its acquisition of RDM Corp., a maker of check scanners and developer of remote deposit capture software, for $70 million in cash. RDM had been publicly held.
• Merchant processor CardConnect Corp. acquired MertzCo Inc., an independent sales organization that already worked with CardConnect and whose merchants generated $1.5 billion in transaction volume in 2016. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. CardConnect named Michael J. Mertz, MertzCo’s CEO and sole stockholder, as its chief sales officer.
• The Association for Financial Professionals released its ninth annual fraud survey, which says that 75% of surveyed organizations experienced check fraud in 2016, up from 71% in 2015, and that more than 70% of corporate treasury and finance executives are reluctant to adopt mobile payments because of security concerns.
• USA Technologies Inc., a vendor of contactless payment technology for self-service machines, said that during its fiscal quarter ended March 31 it exceeded its goal of 500,000 connections to its ePort Connect telemetry service.
• Azimo, a money-transfer service, introduced what it says is an industry first, allowing recipients in the United States, Canada, and Poland to use their mobile phones to request transfers from persons in the United Kingdom or in the Eurozone—where the euro is the currency—and receive the money instantly.
• Point-of-sale software and hardware provider Star Micronics announced it is working with mobile point-of-sale provider Vend to allow retailers to offer digital receipts to customers.
• NCR Corp. announced a new software application for its NCR Aloha Platform that enables restaurant guests to order from kiosks.
• Payments provider Merchant e-Solutions announced e-commerce platform provider Magento named it as a Select Technology Partner.
• EDGE Mobile Payments LLC said it will work with Nuvation Engineering to develop the EDGE Card, a card consolidation device with a touchscreen, the capability to store digital versions of credit and debit cards, and biometric authentication.
• Prepaid program manager InComm said its InComm Japan unit will make its point-of-sale network available to support China-based Tencent Holdings Inc.’s WeChat Pay, allowing users from China to use their smart phones to pay for products and services. More than 5 million Chinese citizens visited Japan last year.
