Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• Coffee giant Starbucks Corp. reported its Mobile Order and Pay feature, which allows customers to order and pay on their mobile phone and then pick up the order later without waiting, accounted for 7% of all transactions in U.S. company-operated stores in the fourth quarter, up from 3% a year earlier. The share for mobile payments overall came to 27% of transactions. Meanwhile, loads for the Starbucks prepaid card in the U.S. and Canada reached a record $2.1 billion for the quarter, up 15%, and active membership in the company’s rewards program increased 16% year-over-year to 12.9 million. The Starbucks card accounted for 40% of transactions in U.S. company-operated locations.
• PayPal Holdings Inc. chief executive Dan Schulman told Bloomberg the company is in conversations with Amazon.com about PayPal acceptance at the online-retailing giant. Veteran payments executive Patrick Gauthier left PayPal in 2015 to head up payments at Amazon.
• Shares of No. 2 U.S. money transmitter MoneyGram Inc. were trading at $12.86 in early action Friday, up nearly a dollar from the $11.88 Wednesday close and following Thursday’s announcement the company is being acquired by China’s Ant Financial in an $880 million deal to be closed later this year. The deal offers MoneyGram shareholders $13.25 per share.
• Nyca Partners, a venture-capital firm that invests in payments-related fintech companies, closed its latest fund with more than $125 million in commitments. Nyca was launched in 2014 by Hans Morris, a former Citigroup Inc. and Visa Inc. executive.
• Jack Dorsey, CEO of merchant processor Square Inc., appears to be taking a stand in the political debate about immigration and refugee programs by promoting a story and video featuring a Syrian small-business owner in a narrative that runs counter to President Donald Trump’s immigration plans, MarketWatch reported.
• Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) named Philip McHugh as senior executive vice president, and president of its Merchant Solutions unit, effective May 1. McHugh most recently was CEO of Barclaycard Business Solutions and earlier worked for Citigroup Inc. in Latin America.
