Competitive Strategies

Cardtronics plc completed the integration of FIS Cardless Cash into 11,000 ATMs and expects to add 8,000 machines over the next several months. Cardtronics and Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) announced the integration in 2017. Online lending platform OnDeck said it will begin funding small-business clients with same-day credits …

Physical gift cards may want to look over their shoulders, so to speak. Digital gift cards are gaining ground, especially among younger consumers, finds new research from Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc., a Pleasanton, Calif.-based gift card specialist. Chief among the results is that 41% of Generation Z consumers, generally those …

Checkbook, a provider of digital-check technology, introduced Instant Pay, a service that lets businesses push funds into consumer and corporate bank accounts using Visa Direct, Visa Inc.’s push-payments network. Checkbook’s founder is PJ Gupta, former chief network architect at Visa. First American Payment Systems LP said it now offers Idealpos’s …

FitPay Inc. has started shipping its contactless, coin-shaped Flip device, which allows users to spend Bitcoin as U.S. dollars at stores. The company said on Wednesday it plans to “ramp up” production of Flip though the first half of the year. The news comes after Fit Pay announced in January …

Payment card fees paid by convenience stores last year rose 9.9% to $11.1 billion from $10.1 billion in 2017, NACS, formerly the National Association of Convenience Stores, says in its newly released State of the Industry report. The increase in card fees outpaced 2018’s 8.9% increase in total sales, to …

Publicly-traded payments companies once again have rewarded their investors, with a basket of shares from 29 firms posting a mean, or average, return of 23.6% in the first quarter to handily beat three major market indexes, according to Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. The market is rebounding in 2019, with …

Apple Inc.’s forthcoming Apple Card is another push from the computing giant to move payments into a digital realm under Apple’s control, according to analysts. Apple last week announced the card, which bears a Mastercard Inc. brand and will be issued by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The product, which eschews …

Wells Fargo & Co. has introduced contactless credit and debit cards for point-of-sale transactions. Information on how many cards will be issued was not immediately available. Tapping at ATMs will be introduced nationwide later this year at more than 13,000 machines, the bank said. Advanced Solutions International, a software developer …

Huntington Bank launched the Zelle peer-to-peer payments service on its mobile and online banking service. Payment Data Systems Inc. said its FiCentive subsidiary will provide its Akimbo commercial prepaid Mastercard-branded cards to the Bowen Center, a behavioral-health company. Zapt, an on-demand platform that lets customers schedule household moves, said it …

The payments industry’s relatively rapid move into digital transactions and broader business software is doing much to fuel the consolidation of big payments providers, according to an analysis posted Friday. Just since January, the industry has witnessed deals that will see Fiserv Inc. acquire industry giant First Data Corp. in …