Competitive Strategies

Alliance Data Systems Corp., a provider of loyalty and marketing services, is moving its nearly 24-year-old in-house private-label card processing operations to Fiserv Inc. The move is part of Alliance Data’s strategy of investing in the development of new digital services for its customers, such as offering credit options to …

As Covid-19 cases spike around the country, grocers and technology companies alike are scrambling to blunt the pandemic’s financial impact. On Thursday, the online delivery service Instacart announced it is starting a program with the grocery chain Aldi to allow recipients of federal SNAP benefits to use their electronic benefit …

Discover Financial Services reported its payment-services volume totaled $69.7 billion in the third quarter, up 11% year-over-year. Volume on the Pulse debit network increased 16% to $55 billion owing to larger average spending due to the pandemic and to the lift from stimulus funds.Payments provider PaymentCloud Inc. said it acquired contactless technology startup …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday announced the rollout in 15 geographic markets of Visa Tap to Phone, which allows consumers to initiate a transaction simply by tapping a contactless card to a merchant’s NFC-enabled mobile device.  Tap to Phone is now live in numerous countries throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia …

PayPal Holdings Inc. announced a service that allows account holders to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency directly from their account. The company also said it will make cryptocurrency available as a funding source for purchases at the 26 million merchants worldwide that accept PayPal.Payments provider FIS Inc. said it added pharmacy chain Walgreens …

With merchant adoption of contactless payment solutions accelerating due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Incognia, a provider of fraud-detection applications, announced an app Tuesday to detect Quick Response code fraud.  The application uses location behavioral biometrics to create a digital fingerprint for the consumer’s identity. It uses the buyer’s real-time and …

The nation’s automated clearing house network surged again in the September quarter, even with a waning of federal-assistance payments. Volume grew by double-digit percentage increases in most major categories as the network handled 6.8 billion transactions overall, up 9%, Nacha reported Tuesday. Nacha is the governing body for the network, …

Last conducted in 2016, the latest Third-Party Processing Pricing Benchmark Study from The Strawhecker Group indicates that debit and credit card transaction pricing appears to have leveled off.  The average value of an IP-connected front-end authorization and capture action in 2020 is $0.016 for jumbo wholesale acquirers, or those with …

Payments industry veterans Will Graylin and George Wallner launched a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo for OV Valet, their new company that wants to offer Superkey, a fob that uses near-field communication and magnetic secure transmission technology, to enable tap-and-pay payments.Payments-technology provider VoPay International Inc. said it is working with Visa Inc. to integrate the …

Though the restaurant industry has taken a hit during most of 2020 because of Covid-19 countermeasures, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need new technology and services. That’s why Ziosk Inc., a Dallas-based point-of-sale technology provider, accelerated its development schedule this year and released a suite of new products. Now, in …