The Aldi Inc. supermarket chain, which only last year began accepting credit cards, said in a press release on Thursday it now “accepts all forms of contactless payment,” including Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay and Alphabet Inc.’s Android Pay mobile wallets. The Batavia, Ill.-based company has already activated contactless payments chainwide, …

For decades, debit cards have been reliable revenue generators and relationship builders for financial institutions of all sizes. But now that bulwark for banks is under threat from multiple alternatives, putting financial-services executives on the defensive and forcing them to rethink their card strategies, argues a new paper out this …

Prepaid cards are still popular with Americans, but not quite as popular as in some recent years, according to new findings from Mercator Advisory Group Inc. A Mercator online survey of 3,011 U.S. adults in June found that 56% of respondents had purchased a prepaid card in the preceding 12 …

Merchant acquirer Square Inc. increased its presence among consumers in the second quarter with the June rollout of its physical Square Cash Card, a Visa debit card, and the launch of a test in which Square provides loans to customers of its merchants. Both developments occurred as Square’s gross payment …

In the United States, contactless payments are virtually synonymous with mobile payments. In other countries, contactless payments usually mean tap-and-go transactions with a plastic debit or credit card. In the United Kingdom, for example, spending on contactless cards reached a record £3.4 billion ($4.2 billion at current exchange rates) in …

• Wells Fargo & Co. will introduce cardless withdrawals to all 13,000 of its ATMs after testing the smart-phone-based service in various locales, a bank executive told Reuters. Wells reportedly is the first bank to roll out cardless ATM withdrawals across its entire ATM fleet. • ATM network operator Cardtronics plc …

• U.K.-based merchant-processing giant Worldpay Group Plc reported its U.S. revenue, which accounts for more than a quarter of its total revenue, increased 15.5% to $299 million in 2016, though the company pointed to weakness in its U.S. business that hurt its overall performance. Average U.S. transaction value declined 2.2% to …

• RYDE Technologies Inc. launched an overhauled version of its ride-hailing app RYDE, first launched last year to compete with Uber and Lyft. As with other such apps, RYDE processes payments in the background against a stored card, summons taxicabs and black cars rather than private vehicles. • The Bancorp Inc., …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The ride-sharing service Uber is strongly associated with mobile apps, not with plastic. But prepaid card providers such as Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. are finding new opportunities in the so-called sharing economy exemplified by Uber, in which drivers using their own vehicles offer taxi-like services to riders. …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Its many critics have labeled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as the regulatory agency run amok, but the CFPB declined to regulate virtual currencies in its newly released rule governing prepaid card accounts even though banks and consumer groups urged it to do so. The CFPB issued …