Instant Financing Attraction and other Digital Transactions New briefs

• Repeal of the Durbin Amendment took a step closer to reality with the passage of the Financial Choice Act by the House Financial Services Committee by a 34-26 vote. The full House is expected to take up the bill by the end of the month.

• MoneyGram International Inc. said it and Ant Financial Services Group have won U.S. antitrust clearance and have filed for state licensing approvals in connection with their planned merger. The merger is still subject to MoneyGram stockholder approval and remaining regulatory approvals. Under an amended agreement, which has been approved by MoneyGram’s board, China-based Ant proposes to acquire MoneyGram for $18 per share in cash, or $1.2 billion. Euronet Worldwide Inc. has made a rival bid for MoneyGram valued at $1 billion.

• MoneyGram said digital money-transfer revenue grew 13% year-over-year in the first quarter and represented 15% of total money-transfer revenues.

• The Competition and Markets Authority, the United Kingdom’s antitrust regulator, said it will do an “in-depth” investigation of ATM network operator Cardtronics plc’s acquisition of the U.K. operations of Canada-based ATM provider DirectCash Payments Inc.; the CMA said that in some local areas “where there is insufficient competition from rival ATMs, the merger could lead to increased surcharge fees for customers withdrawing cash.” The CMA gave Cardtronics until May 10 to offer alternatives that address its concerns before proceeding with the probe. Cardtronics in January closed on its $495 million acquisition of DCPayments, which had 25,000 ATMs in Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand as well as the U.K.

• Evertec Inc. said first-quarter revenues grew 6% from a year earlier to $101.3 million; the Puerto Rico-based payment processor reported net income of $23 million, up 20%.

• Newtek Business Services Corp., owner of the independent sales organizations Newtek Merchant Solutions and Premier Payments LLC, reported $27.8 million in payment-processing revenues for the first quarter, up 9.4% from $25.4 million a year earlier.

• Jack Henry & Associates Inc. announced strategic services agreements with First Data Corp. and PSCU, a credit-union processor, to expand the credit and debit card platform it offers through its JHA Card Processing Solutions unit.

• Speedpay Inc., a unit of The Western Union Co., said it is working with kiosk provider DivDat to allow Speedpay utility clients to deploy bill-payment kiosks at locations of their choice.

• Risk and compliance specialist ePayAdvisors announced a partnership with Laru Technologies, a vendor of risk-management tools for wire and automated clearing house transactions, to provide solutions to ePayAdvisors clients.

• Square Inc. has started sending its rumored debit card to some consumer users of its Square Cash money-transfer service, Recode reported.

• Q-Card, a testing company for the payments industry, said it received accreditation from EMVCo for a contactless test protocol.

• Payments provider iPayment Inc. named Shawn Lally as director of business development. Previously, Lally worked at Heartland Payment Systems Inc., First Data Corp., and TransFirst Holdings.