Competitive Strategies

The impact of the economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic has affected payments of all sorts, but perhaps none so much as consumer bill payments. Indeed, some 56% of consumers said it was harder to pay bills because they’d lost their jobs or had sustained a reduction in income, …

Online purchases using installment credit will total $680 billion globally in 2025, up 92% from $353 billion last year, projects Kaleido Intelligence.In related news, point-of-sale installment lender Laybuy launched a partner program to help smaller retailers offer the credit. More than 6,000 merchants offer Laybuy.MetaBank N.A., a unit of Meta Financial Group Inc., …

Payments provider Paya Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire The Payment Group (TPG), a provider of integrated payments to utilities and government. TPG’s software allows consumers to digitally pay their court and utility bills. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in October, were not disclosed. As …

As small businesses prepare for the holiday shopping season in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Visa Inc. announced it is launching programs and resources to support their efforts, including so-called Visa Street Teams that visit stores to provide point-of-sale materials to support contactless payments.In related news, Visa said 60% of U.S. …

Sam’s Club, the warehouse-retail arm of Walmart Inc., is bringing its Scan & Go self-checkout technology to more than 500 Sam’s Club fuel stations. Called Scan & Go Fuel, the mobile-payment service will enable consumers to make contactless payments using the Sam’s Club app at 518 Sam’s Club locations by …

Real-time payment flows are coming to processor settlements with merchants as Visa Inc. enlarges the market for its Visa Direct push-payment service. The latest development emerged this week with EVO Payments Inc.’s launch of EVO Direct Deposit, a service that relies on Visa Direct to credit U.S. merchant accounts. The …

Point-of-sale credit provider Affirm Inc. said it raised $500 million in a series G funding round. Lead investors were GIC and Durable Capital Partners LP. Affirm also introduced an interest-free biweekly payment product for transactions of as little as $50. It also announced that NutriBullet, a small-appliance maker, offers Affirm as a payment …

Convenience-store operators wanting another way to accept payments for lottery games have a decoupled-debit option with the launch of the BuyLottoNow program. The program, provided by iVertical Payment Network LLC, Boca Raton, Fla., charges no fees to merchants, but charges consumers 30 cents per transaction. Consumers enroll a checking account …

PureWrist, a contactless-transaction technology provider, on Thursday debuted PureWrist Go, a reloadable flexible bracelet with an embedded EMV chip that allows consumers to make prepaid contactless transactions. PureWrist GO, which retails for $25, plus the amount preloaded on to device, is the flagship product on the PureWrist platform. New York …

VSoft Corp., a provider of digital-banking and payment solutions to financial institutions, on Wednesday launched the Bread network, a peer-to-peer, consumer-to-business, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business payment network.  Bread enables real-time payments between financial institutions within its network. Money sent and money received is kept within the users’ respective financial-institution accounts, as …