Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• McDonald’s Corp. is adding order-ahead and payment features to its mobile app as part of a new global growth strategy; mobile order and pay will be enabled in 20,000 restaurants in the U.S. and other countries by year’s end, the fast-food giant giant said.
• Dwolla Inc. has introduced Transfer, a Web app meant for businesses that don’t have developers on staff. The product, which requires no coding, comes with application programming interfaces (APIs) and enables such Dwolla services as MassPay and scheduled payments. The new app represents a bundling and rebranding of Dwolla.com, according to Dwolla founder Ben Milne.
• American Express Co. announced new benefits for its upscale Platinum card, including up to $200 in annual Uber credits. The card’s $450 annual fee will be raised to $550 effective March 30.
• Payment technology provider ACI Worldwide Inc. reported a 52% year-over-year increase in net income in the fourth quarter to $66.7 million on revenues of $342.7 million, up 11%.
• In related news, ACI said it has granted a perpetual license to Mastercard International Inc. and Mastercard Technologies LLC concerning components of ACI’s NET24-XPNET middleware on Mastercard’s debit switch. Mastercard’s purchase of the license resolves a lawsuit between ACI and Mastercard.
• UATP, a U.S.-based payments switch owned by the world’s major airlines, announced it will work with Sweden-based fintech Trustly to allow airlines to accept instant online bank transfers for ticket purchases in Europe.
• Vantiv Inc. has agreed to provide debit and credit card processing for Tyndall Federal Credit Union. The deal will also allow Tyndall to offer Vantiv’s MobiMoney card-control application to its members.
• Online financial institution Ally Bank launched its Ally Card Controls mobile app that enables its debit card holders to turn a card on and off if it is lost or stolen, set spending limits, disable transactions at specific types of merchants, and control usage of the card in specified geographical areas.
• Prepaid card transaction processor NetSpend appointed Jeff Johnson senior vice president for commercial prepaid. Johnson comes to the company, a unit of Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), from Card Compliant LLC and also has experience with the prepaid services unit of First Data Corp.
