PayPal’s octopus-like strategy covers everything from P2P payments, bill pay, and the point of sale to parting ways with eBay. Can Schulman and Co. keep all the balls in the air? PayPal Holdings Inc. president and chief executive Dan Schulman can’t be accused of making small plans. “We aspire to …

Its $22-billion megamerger agreement with First Data sets it up to be a dominant player on both the bank and merchant sides of payments. How will the industry react? Executives at Fiserv Inc. all but popped champagne corks on Feb. 7 when they spoke to industry analysts about the Brookfield, …

Minting money has become a mouse click in the Federal Reserve’s computer. Ninety percent of circulated funds is never materialized in either coins or bank notes. And the recent craze for cryptocurrencies further cements the de-materialization of money. The advantages of digital currency are clear and numerous: it stores on …

A bevy of fees levied by the two major card networks is offsetting much of the fee relief merchants receive from the 7-year-old Durbin Amendment, according to new findings from a payments-research firm that is studying the issue on behalf of the retail industry. While the Durbin caps on debit …

Cincinnati-based grocery giant The Kroger Co. has launched a proprietary mobile-payments service, Kroger Pay, and an accompanying Kroger Rewards debit card. Kroger Pay, available for iOS and Android mobile devices, is a quick-response code-based mobile-payment service, which also includes digital coupons and personalized offers. Kroger Pay, like some other retailer-backed mobile-payments services, …

Want to start—or bet on—the next big thing in payments? Forget glitz and glamor and focus on startups that address pressing problems with substantial and realistic solutions, argues Eric Grover. Successful payments fintechs such as Adyen, Ant Financial, Klarna, Stripe, and Square have generated enormous excitement. With the arguable exception …

Benefitting from a built-in customer connection, retailer wallets adroitly tap into shoppers’ purchasing habits in ways unavailable to the big tech wallets. Retailer mobile wallets are proliferating in part because the consumer can get something that she can’t with any of the tech-based apps. That is a high degree of …

As cash goes, so go ATMs. Cash so far has managed to ward off its many electronic enemies, but it’s playing defense in the payments version of The Hundred Years’ War. What does it all mean for ATM deployers and manufacturers? The leading payment card networks have targeted cash since …

Payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) last month unveiled a line of point-of-sale terminals and services for small and mid-size businesses, and took its Vital brand out of a 13-year retirement as the name for the new product suite. The cloud-based Vital POS has three major components: Vital Mobile, …

The proposed merger of Fiserv Inc. and mega-processor First Data Corp. has huge implications for many parts of the payments industry. But the deal, if consummated as planned, could have an especially large effect on the U.S. debit card market. First Data owns the Star electronic funds network, while Fiserv …