LawFi, a payments platform for law firms, announced a $1.5-million pre-seed funding round from Capital Q Ventures. Digital-banking provider Ibanera announced Portl, a set of blockchain-based payments technologies for online gaming. NordVPN, a vendor of cybersecurity technology, launched an insurance program offering victims of identity theft reimbursement up to $1 million for …

Citing a payments industry that is united in its opposition to the Credit Card Competition Act, research from the Congressional Research Service questioning the benefits of the legislation, and suspect support for the bill among members of Congress, the Electronic Payments Coalition says it is primed to continue its fight …

Repay Holdings Corp., a provider of payment-processing services, has partnered with Green Dot Corp. to enable Repay merchants to accept cash-based bill payments at more than 45,000 locations in the United States. The service depends on Green Dot’s eCash technology, which enables users to present a barcode that serves as …

Buy now, pay later provider Zip Co. said U.S. merchants that accept Google Pay online can integrate Zip’s Pay-in-4 service, backed by WebBank, for Google Pay transactions. Trustly Group AB, an open-banking payments platform, announced its transaction volume on the Real Time Payments network increased 29% in the third quarter over the …

Discover Financial Services said its board of directors has appointed Michael G. Rhodes chief executive and president. Rhodes, who will take office on or before March 6, succeeds interim CEO and president John Owen, who will continue as a Discover board member. Rhodes comes to Discover from TD Bank, where he was …

SoundHound AI Inc. said it will acquire SYNQ3 Restaurant Solutions, a voice artificial intelligence and technology provider for restaurants, in a deal valued at $25 million. Once completed, the deal will extend SoundHound’s services to 10,000 locations and more than 25 national and multinational chains. The deal is expected to close …

Navy Federal Credit Union reported it took in more than $2.7 million in real-time deposits on its first full day of real-time payments service on The Clearing House Payments Co.’s Real Time Payments (RTP) network. Shift4 Payments said it will process ticket and in-venue concession sales for the Baltimore Ravens National Football League …

MiCamp Solutions said it increased its investment and involvement with Cocard, a unique owner-operated independent sales organization. Terms were not disclosed, though MiCamp said collectively the alliance will serve more than 46,000 merchants and process more than $40 billion in annual transaction volume. Payments provider Nuvei Corp. has agreed to process online transactions …

Payments-platform provider Payroc LLC has launched an application programming interface that enables clients to offer its PayByBank solution in the United States and Canada through a single interface. Before this launch, Payroc clients needed separate interfaces to offer PayByBank in each country. The single interface eliminates the need for multiple …

It will take some time and effort, but with proper planning and research financial institutions can minimize the hassles. Many people in banking and financial technology aren’t aware that the word “core” in “core banking provider” started out as an acronym for “Centralized Online Real-time Exchange” (or “Environment”). This “real-time” …