Competitive Strategies

VersaBank USA started a pilot for its USDVBs, tokenized versions of actual cash deposits at the bank. The move follows a similar pilot by the bank in Canada. VersaBank says it will seek a non-objection statement from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency before launching the product commercially. Thread …

Authvia, a provider of text-to-pay and conversational-commerce technology for independent software vendors, independent sales organizations, banks, and merchants, has integrated Visa Direct into its TXT2PAY platform. The integration allows merchants and businesses to initiate outbound disbursements, as well as receive inbound payments, in real time. As a result, merchants will …

Buy now, pay later services might be mostly associated with e-commerce, but BNPL providers are steadily moving acceptance into stores. The latest is Klarna AB with Monday’s announcement it is now an in-store payment method at more than 400 Walmart Inc. locations across Canada. Sweden-based Klarna says Walmart is its …

American Express Co. and the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced 50 restaurants will each get a $50,000 grant plus one year of free service from Resy, an AmEx company. The grants are part of the Backing Historic Small Restaurants program. Payments provider TouchSuite said it acquired a majority ownership in STG, a …

Gather Federal Credit Union in Hawaii has partnered with equipifi Inc. to become the first credit union in the state to offer buy now, pay later to its members. The credit union, which has more than 39,000 members on the islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, will offer the service as …

The U.S. cannabis market, which saw $30.1 billion in sales last year, is growing at an accelerating pace, and that’s attracting the attention of processors and other providers. The market’s emergence as a fertile payments-processing market comes as it continues to wrestle with regulatory issues and limited banking services. POSaBIT …

Revenue for all firms offering open-banking technology will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16% to $11.7 billion by 2028, up from $5.5 billion in 2023, according to a report from management consulting firm MarketsandMarkets, which singles out Plaid, Envestnet, Finicity, and MX Technologies as primary U.S. developers of the …

Canadian fintech Zūm Rails early Thursday launched a reloadable prepaid card program on the Mastercard network for businesses in Canada, in which Zūm will serve as the card issuer. As the issuer, Zūm Rails says it can reduce by months the time it would take for businesses to launch such …

In the fiercely competitive restaurant market, point-of-sale systems makers can’t afford to slack off when it comes to features for restaurant operators. That’s why companies frequently develop new features. Qu POS Inc. and Square, separately, are the most recent examples. First up is Qu, an Arlington, Va.-based POS system maker with …

Technology provider Q2 Holdings Inc. announced Open Payment Network is its first partner to offer integration for Q2 Instant Payments Manager, a product aimed at banks looking to manage real-time payment workflows. Canada-based payments provider Corpay Inc. announced its cross-border platform has become the official foreign-exchange partner to the New Zealand Football club. Klear.ai, …