Competitive Strategies

Independent sales organizations can’t do much without a sponsor bank, also known as an acquiring bank, to get them access to the payment card networks. As with most business endeavors, the complexity of finding a sponsor bank has increased. It’s a challenge that attendees at the 2023 Midwest Acquirers Association …

American Express Co. is working to sign more card deals like the one it has with merchants using Block Inc.’s Square merchant-processing unit, while cardholder spending and revenue for the company have rebounded to hit record quarterly highs, top executives for the travel-and-entertainment giant said early Friday. The good news …

Service provider Finzly said it supports the FedNow real-time payments service that launched Thursday. Other providers— Jack Henry & Associates Inc. and Pidgin—also support the instant payment service. Fiserv Inc. said two of its clients are live on FedNow and nearly 100 others anticipate doing so in coming months. Banking services provider CSI said it offers FedNow access and noted …

The Federal Reserve’s instant-payment service, FedNow, is officially live with 35 banks and credit unions participating, the nation’s banking regulator announced early Thursday. The launch, which culminates four years of work since the Fed first announced its intention to build a real-time payments rail, comes as the payments industry moves …

Relay Payments, a payments platform for the trucking industry, announced an integration with McLeod Software, a vendor of management software for the same industry. ACI Worldwide Inc. introduced an acquiring-as-a-service platform in collaboration with Dock, a Brazil-based technology company. The product is aimed at retailers, restaurants, and e-commerce businesses. Consumer attitudes …

The Federal Reserve could launch its FedNow real-time payments service as early as tomorrow, sources tell Digital Transactions News. The network, which has been under development for nearly four years, represents the regulator’s first effort to create a nationwide network for instant payments, a service that other countries, and at …

Two payments companies are tapping into consumers’ affinity for texting—more than 6 billion SMS text messages are sent daily, according to The Small Business Blog—with a bill-pay service and a program for merchants. First, Detroit-based Diversified Data Processing & Consulting Inc., known as DivDat, added a text-to-pay  feature to its …

Keyo, a provider of digital-identity technology, released its Keyo Wave+ hand scanner for payments, access control, ticketing, and other uses. Visa Inc. has renewed an agreement to be the exclusive payment-services provider for the U.S. Women’s and Men’s National Soccer Teams. Buy now, pay later provider Afterpay Ltd. said it has added “thousands” of new …

From ordering and payments to reward redemption consumers want a simpler shopping experience, according to research from Fiserv Inc. To meet demand, merchants and restaurants should provide more omnichannel experiences, retailer apps, and embedded payment options that add value. Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) is one way merchants …

Payments provider Nuvei Corp. and open-banking specialist Plaid Inc. expanded their relationship to include new services, including bank-based payments for recurring payments and payouts, and new vertical markets, including utilities and business-to-business transfers. Synchrony said its Synchrony Pay Later service will be the exclusive buy now, pay later option at the At Home …