• American Express Co. plans to roll out an online loan platform this year that will challenge other small-business lenders, including Square Inc. and On Deck Capital Inc., Bloomberg reported.
• Independent sales organization Pace Payment Systems announced it is working with @Pay LLC on an integrated text-to-pay service.
• ETags.com, a private, online vehicle-registration service in California, said it now accepts payments made with American Express Co. cards. The company also accepts payments made with Discover, MasterCard, and Visa cards.
• Processor ACI Worldwide said it will host “The eCommerce Disruption Opportunity” conference on Tuesday in Paris to focus on how e-commerce merchants can exploit new payments technologies.
• In related news, ACI appointed Marco Bravo vice president for its Latin America operation. Bravo is a former Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp. executive.