Competitive Strategies

Technology startup BankiFi, which seeks to enable payments and banking functions for small businesses, announced it has received a $4.8 million investment to fund its expansion into North America. Praetura Ventures led the funding round.Focused Labs, a developer of custom payments software, said it has joined the Stripe Partner Ecosystem. Stripe Inc.’s …

While the recent partnership between fintech Wise US Inc., which specializes in cross-border payments, and Plaid Inc. is another example of the momentum open banking is gaining globally, one overlooked element of the deal is the role the open-banking standard developed by the Financial Data Exchange played in making the …

Central Payments, a unit of Central Bank of Kansas City, completed a $30 million funding round, which was led by Castle Creek Capital and with more investment from Launchpad Capital. The funding spins the company out from Central Bank.PayGround, a digital wallet for medical bills, launched a “get healthy now, pay …

At the end of 2021, comedian Grace Mulvey brought smiles to many on Twitter when she reflected on the unexpected rise of a technology that was laughed off by many. “I can’t think of anyone who has had a better year than the QR code. What a comeback.”  While our …

The drive to encourage consumers to use cryptocurrency to pay for transactions at the point-of-sale shifted into a higher gear Wednesday as BitPay Inc. announced the launch of a cash-back rewards program for its prepaid card. Cardholders, who will be automatically enrolled in the rewards program, can earn up to …

The card-issuing platform Marqeta Inc. on Wednesday reported processing volume of $40 billion for the June quarter, a 53% increase over the same time last year, but the 12-year-old company also announced its founding chief executive is leaving that position. Jason Gardner, a well-known payments entrepreneur, said he will move …

Finix, a payments provider for software platforms, raised $30 million in its latest funding round, bringing its total funding to $133 million. American Express was among investors.Unit, whose technology allows firms to weave accounts, payments, cards, and other banking services into their products, said it has partnered with Thread Bank, a …

Sionic Mobile Corp., a provider of consumer-to-business payments technology, will launch a program that enables independent sales organizations, agents, independent software vendors and other resellers to provide merchant clients with a new Pay-by-Bank service in the United States. The program, which will launch Sept. 1, is intended to help resellers …

Bruce Lowthers took over a stumbling Paysafe Ltd. back in May, and now with three months evaluating the company behind him, the new chief executive early Wednesday offered encouragement mixed with some tough talk. Speaking particularly about product innovation, Lowthers lowered the boom, citing what he sees as an imbalance …

Financial-technology provider Jack Henry & Associates Inc. said it will acquire Payrailz, a provider of digital-payments technology, including real-time peer-to-peer payments capability. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close by the end of the month, were not disclosed.Payments platform BlueSnap has agreed to support KeyBank’s U.S payments gateway for e-commerce transactions by middle-market …