Competitive Strategies

More older consumers—those 45 years old or more—are likely to pick up online shopping as a routine shopping channel, predicts eMarketer Inc. The New York City-based research firm forecasts a 5.8% increase in the number of online shoppers in that demographic. That is up from the earlier forecast of 3.2%. …

One of the most aggressive—and worrisome—central bank digital currency models is a proposal from law professors Morgan Ricks and John Crawford and lawyer and former regulator Lev Menand that the Fed provide direct banking “FedAccounts” to consumers and businesses. It’s intended to improve payments efficiency and reduce the number of …

Maverick Payments launched its payment gateway, which supports 3-D Secure, account updaters, and interchange optimization.Digital-payments technology provider Checkout.com announced a $150 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $5.5 billion. The round, led by technology fund Coatue, tripled the company’s value.ATM and point-of-sale hardware and software provider Diebold Nixdorf Inc. said it generated …

ATM manufacturer Diebold Nixdorf Inc. extended its agreement with consulting firm Accenture plc to streamline its operations by making business processes digital and moving them to the cloud. Diebold Nixdorf says the pact could yield $50 million in savings through 2023.The Federal Reserve released its FraudClassifier model, an effort to bring consistency to the …

Splitit Payments Ltd. announced Thursday that it had signed a multiyear agreement with Mastercard Inc. intended to accelerate adoption of its installment-payment service for online merchants. The distribution agreement opens the possibility of Mastercard-accepting merchants offering Splitit as a financing option to their customers. New York City-based Splitit also has …

Digital fiat currencies are coming. Bitcoin and the more than 5,000 cryptocurrencies it inspired have ignited the interest of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Peoples Bank of China, as well as that of private-sector players like Visa and Facebook, in digital currencies tied to dollars, euros, …

Merchants that cobrand rewards cards to build business are often connected one way or another to the travel industry, but they may not have much to worry about even though the Covid-19 pandemic has kept consumers close to home. Twenty-three percent of these cardholders think they’re getting more value from …

ZipLine, the provider of private-label debit payment services for convenience stores like Cumberland Farms, has been acquired by Professional Datasolutions Inc., a c-store software developer and services company. Announced Thursday, the deal will enable Alpharetta, Ga.-based PDI to bundle ZipLine’s private-label debit and mobile-payment app with its Marketing Cloud Platform. …

E-commerce spending in the United States surged 93% in May, compared to May 2019, according to Mastercard Inc.’s SpendingPulse data service.Installment-payment technology provider Splitit Payments Ltd. said it signed a multiyear deal with Mastercard Inc. to provide access to Splitit’s installment options through Mastercard’s merchant network. Split and Mastercard also plan to jointly …

Merchants in the United Kingdom won an important battle against interchange fees on Wednesday but it remains uncertain just how much that will mean to them in terms of remuneration from Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. The case also could have ramifications for similar action in the U.S. market, some …