Competitive Strategies

Clearent LLC announced the acquisition of Wintac, a software developer for the residential contractor industry. Wintac will become part of FieldEdge, a Clearent subsidiary. Terms were not disclosed.Payments provider Priority Technology Holdings Inc. has completed a previously announced sale of its RentPayment business to real-estate technology provider MRI Software. Priority will continue to …

Priority Technology Holdings and its Priority Payments Systems and Priority Commercial Payments units are working with business-to-business credit provider Behalf Inc. to allow Priority clients to finance purchases at checkout through Behalf rather than through cash, check, or credit card. The move comes as many small businesses continue to contend with …

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 …