Acquiring

Google Inc. agreed to acquire Fitbit Inc., producer of smart watches and the Fitbit Pay contactless-payment service, for approximately $2.1 billion. Fitbit has sold more than 100 million devices in its 12 years in business. Google, whose Google Pay mobile-payment service has been in the market since 2015, is part of Alphabet Inc. The …

Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) officially became part of Global Payments Inc. only on Sept. 18, but the massive task of stitching two large payment processors together didn’t stop Global from buying yet another financial institution’s merchant portfolio. Global announced Thursday that it will acquire the entire 40,000-merchant file of …

ATM network operator Cardtronics plc reported revenues of $351.5 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up 3% year-over-year. ATM operating revenues totaled $333.4 million, up 1%. The company reported agreements in the quarter to place more than 1,000 ATMs, as well as a renewal and expansion of its agreement with leading …

Two subsidiaries of The Kroger Co. have ended their boycott of Visa credit cards that started 14 months ago over acceptance costs, but it’s unknown if Visa granted the grocery-store giant any fee reductions. Local media outlets in the West reported Wednesday morning that Visa credit card acceptance had resumed …

The Kroger Co. lifted its acceptance ban on Visa credit cards at its Smith’s Food & Drug and Foods Co subsidiaries, according to news reports. Kroger, citing what it called high acceptance costs, first banned the cards at its small Foods Co chain in August 2018 and extended it to the larger Smith’s …

While much attention in the payments industry in recent months has focused on EMVCo’s Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) specification, another e-commerce spec from the standards body could be receiving some tweaks. These possible initiatives, which concern the EMV 3-D Secure specifications, include a way of adding users’ travel data to …

Mastercard Inc. switched 20% more transactions on its worldwide network in the third quarter than it did a year earlier as purchase volumes remained strong and new growth markets generated more payments. “Growth was broad-based,” Mastercard president and chief executive Ajay Banga said Tuesday morning during the company’s third-quarter earnings …

Ride-share provider Uber Technologies Inc. announced Uber Money, an update to its roster of financial services, mostly for its drivers. Among the products is the relaunch of the Uber credit card in a deal with Barclays. Uber Money also can provide Uber drivers real-time access to their earnings in an Uber Debit …

Owners of small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) generally have a negative outlook on the payments industry, and for good reason. The merchant-services world, in particular, has an ugly track record, including lackluster customer support, not to mention misleading sales practices that lead to costly processing rates, hidden fees, and burdensome …

Days after Nxgen and Payscape announced they were merging with a third payments provider, BluePay Canada, the new entity said it has agreed to combine with a fourth company, Payroc LLC, and adopt the Payroc name. James Oberman, Payroc’s chief executive, will serve as CEO of the merged entity.Discover Financial Services said it now …