News

January, 2023

• 31 January

  Cash App’s Latest Feature Aims to Help Consumers Meet Their Savings Goals

  

  Block Inc.’s Cash App unit says it is attempting to make it easier for consumers to salt away money with the introduction of Cash App Savings. The new feature allows Cash App users to deposit savings into a separate account within the app, build additional savings by rounding up their …
• 31 January

  Musk Is Engineering a Return to Payments Via Twitter, Reports Say

  

  Elon Musk helped found what became PayPal back at the turn of the century, and now it appears he is moving on an ambition he outlined months ago to add a payments feature to Twitter, the social-media platform he paid $44 billion to acquire in October. The San Francisco-based company …
• 31 January

  CFPB’s Hot Buttons Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/31/23

  

  Banking and payments professionals should watch for action from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on key areas such as open banking, credit card late fees, fintech partnerships, and buy now, pay later plans, warns Strategic Resource Management, a consulting firm. American Express Co. released its American Express Business Blueprint, a digital cash flow management service …
• 30 January

  Despite Headwinds, E-Commerce Remained a Juggernaut Throughout the ‘22 Holiday Season

  

  E-commerce transactions for the 2022 holiday-shopping season bested predictions for growth, despite signs of a weakening economy, according to research from ACI Worldwide Inc. From October through December, online transactions increased 21% from the same period in 2021, besting pre-holiday shopping- growth estimates by six percentage points, says ACI. In …
• 30 January

  Justice Wants More Info From Visa on its Debit Practices

  

  The U.S. Department of Justice wants more information from Visa Inc. on its U.S. debit practices, a continuation of an investigation originally started in 2021. Visa disclosed the request in a Jan. 27 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing and said the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division made the request on …
• 30 January

  Gr4vy’s Tokenization Move And Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/30/23

  

  Gr4vy Inc., a payments-technology provider, has integrated network-tokenization services from Giesecke+Devrient GmbH into its platform in a move expected to improve authorization rates and cut transaction costs. Owlin, an artificial-intelligence technology developer, launched Owlin for KYC, said to be one platform to screen merchants and to ease onboarding, monitoring, and …
• 27 January

  AmEx Posts a Double-Digit Rise in ’22 Volume But Faces Queries About Its Card Take

  

  American Express Co., whose travel-and-entertainment focus took a beating during the pandemic and is now rebounding, reported strong growth early Friday for its latest quarter, but left at least some equity analysts questioning whether the growth is strong enough. Analysts zeroed in on revenue growth and card-acquisition rates, in particular, …
• 27 January

  Visa’s Kelly Stresses Stability As He Prepares to Hand Off The Reins of Leadership

  

  Following years of pandemic restrictions that all card companies had to contend with, Visa Inc.’s top executives late Thursday highlighted stable transaction and processing volumes and growing cross-border travel as the United States and other global regions continued to recover. The event also featured an appearance by Visa president Ryan …
• 27 January

  POSaBIT Makes $4 Million Deal And Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 1/27/23

  

  POSaBIT Systems Corp., a point-of-sale system maker for the cannabis industry, said it will acquire MJ Platform, Leaf Data Systems, and Ample Organics from Akerna Corp. for $4 million in an all-cash transaction. The deal will almost double the number of locations serviced by POSaBIT and expands its operations in Canada. …
• 26 January

  Mobile Wallet Usage Is Up, But Many Consumers Still Prefer to Pay With Plastic

  

  Consumer adoption of mobile wallets may be growing, but a lot of consumers still prefer to pay using a physical card, a report from J.D. Power finds. The report, which surveyed 3,588 retail-bank customers nationwide between the first quarter of 2021 and third quarter of 2022, found that 49% of …