The real-time payments movement continues to build momentum in the United States with FIS Inc.’s announcement Wednesday of RealNet, a cloud-based, software-as-a-service platform that enables businesses, consumers, and governments to initiate account-to-account transactions. RealNet, which FIS describes as a network of networks, will leverage The Clearing House Payment Co. LLC’s …

Mastercard Inc. said it will acquire Ekata, a digital identity services company, for $850 million. Ekata helps identify good customers and businesses and bad actors in real time, it said. Ekata, formerly the business-to-business unit of Whitepages Pro, spun off in 2019 and adopted the new name. The deal is expected …

Payments provider Nuvei Corp. has agreed to acquire Mazooma Technical Services Inc., a payment-technology provider for sports betting, for $56 million plus additional consideration upon achievement of performance criteria.Payments fintech Mogo Inc. has closed on its acquisition of a nearly 20% interest in digital-asset trading platform Coinsquare Ltd.The Clipper app, introduced by Cubic Transportation Systems and …

The top 50 originating institutions for automated clearing house transactions accounted for 23.1 billion payments in 2020, up 8.6% over 2019 and nearly 93% of all commercial ACH payments, according to Nacha, the governing body for the ACH. The 50 largest receiving institutions controlled 61.2% of volume with 16.4 billion payments, …

As payments providers ramp up fast-payment capabilities that don’t depend on existing card-payment rails, pressure has mounted on the dominant U.S. card networks to enable quick transfers from senders to accounts held by receivers worldwide. Visa Inc. on Tuesday, for example, announced Visa Direct Payouts, which allows users to send …

Veteran payments practitioners will recall that, “in the beginning,” issuers paid interchange to merchants to incent them to accept credit card payments from the incipient Visa and Mastercard networks.  By the inception of electronic draft capture (circa 1980), that acceptance was growing to a critical-mass level nationwide, and by the late …

Citcon USA LLC is looking to connect U.S. e-commerce merchants with an array of digital wallets used by consumers in Latin America and Southeast Asia. The San Jose, Calif.-based company said late Thursday a single integration will enable transactions on more than 100 wallets used by consumers from a diverse …

All eight hotels in The Kessler Collection will accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies under an agreement with digital-currency processor BitPay Inc. Guests will receive an email, from which they may pay using their crypto wallet.Personas Social Inc. launched its Paysonas payment-processing platform, which supports online real-time debit and Bitcoin.Menufy, a provider of online-ordering …

Payments provider Priority Technology Holdings Inc. announced it has agreed to acquire Finxera Holdings Inc., a provider of banking-as-a-service technology. Terms were not announced for the transaction, which is expected to close in the third quarter.Mastercard Inc. said it is expanding its Engage platform to digital first deployment, assistance and training through the …

Mobile marketing specialist Vibes said brands sent 400% more mobile messages for buy online pickup in store and buy online pickup at curbside services in the 2020 fourth quarter than they did in the 2019 fourth quarter. Vibes predicted that both pickup options will continue to grow 45% in 2021.London-based digital payouts …