Person-to-Person Payments

There are a lot of conflicting economic forecasts about what lies ahead for the rest of 2024. Of course, it is said that economic forecasting exists only to validate astrology, but two things are certain: increased global trade and shifting populations due to migrations by higher-income-seeking migrant labor. Both of …

Alphabet Inc.’s decision to discontinue Google Pay in the U.S. market, including its peer-to-peer payments capability, effective in June is not entirely an unexpected move, experts say, as the app has a more popular sibling in Google Wallet. And, they note, it lacks the market share of competing digital wallets. …

Visa Inc. and the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation launched Digital Finance for All, a five-year program aimed at increasing access to digital finance for some 20 million persons in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. RevSpring Inc. launched a new scoring model for its Engage IQ service that evaluates the quality of …

Block Inc. posted double-digit increases in net income for its December quarter and for 2023, but its co-founder and chief executive let it be known late Thursday the company has work to do. “Across the board, we’ve been going through an exercise in how we work so we can move …

Alphabet Inc. will discontinue Google Pay, including its peer-to-peer payments capability, in the U.S. market on June 4, though it will maintain a Google Pay website.  In the place of Google Pay, which launched amid much fanfare in 2011, Alphabet is promoting Google Wallet, which appeared in 2022 with wider functionality than payments, …

Volume for automated clearing house transactions cleared and settled on the same day they’re initiated increased 22.3% in 2023, signaling the embrace of same-day ACH by the payments industry, Nacha says. Same-day processing was launched nearly eight years ago. Nacha, a rulemaker for the ACH network, says overall ACH volume …

Bank of America reported an all-time high 21.5 million customers now use the peer-to-peer payments network Zelle. BofA customers last year sent and received 1.24 billion Zelle payments totaling $373 billion, both also record highs. In the fourth quarter, Zelle send transactions were double the number of checks written, the bank …

Fiserv Inc., already a behemoth in merchant processing, is preparing to straddle its twin pillars of acquiring-bank relationships, on the one hand, and its own acquiring operations through a Georgia bank charter, on the other. The charter, which the big processor applied for last month, has “a very specific purpose,” …

Prepaid card spending is on the rise, according to Fiserv Inc.’s annual Prepaid Consumer Insights Study. Some 69% of consumers surveyed say they purchased the same number of gift cards, or more, in 2023 compared to 2022. In addition, 40% of  buyers are putting at least $50 on gift cards, …

Digital-currency platform Bit.Store launched its Visa Virtual Crypto Card, a prepaid card that can store Bitcoin and offers cashback rewards on transactions. The social-media platform X has reportedly established a “dedicated account” that could transact in cryptocurrency for the platform’s expected peer-to-peer payments service. There has been no official word so far from X, formerly …