Competitive Strategies

Paysafe Group said it is rebranding merchant acquirer iPayment Holdings Inc. as Paysafe “with immediate effect.” Paysafe acquired iPayment this spring for undisclosed terms. Rewards platform provider Cardlytics Inc. said revenue from Cardlytics Direct, the company’s primary product, hit $35.1 million in the second quarter, up 21% from a year …

The escalating U.S.-China trade war is generating calls for a truce from the payments industry. Most recently, the ATM Industry Association announced its opposition to planned U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, calling them a “threat to business.” ATMIA members are expected to testify at a tariff hearing next week in …

Don’t look for many optimists in the payments industry when it comes to a future with less fraud. Fully 84% of those surveyed by TD Bank say payments fraud will become a bigger threat over the next one to two years. Released Tuesday, the survey, conducted this spring at the …

Users of Square Inc.’s Cash App can now buy and sell Bitcoin in all states, according to a tweet the company sent at mid-day Monday. The Bitcoin capability, which Square introduced in November as a pilot, is hardly a major business for the San Francisco-based payments company, but it is starting …

The boycott of Visa credit cards by The Kroger Co.’s Foods Co chain in central and northern California began Tuesday as planned, but the parent company still won’t say whether the boycott will be expanded to its many other units. Citing what it calls high costs to accept Visa credit …

Citcon USA LLC, a cross-border mobile-payment and marketing company, said its service will be enabled at various Mall of America merchandise shops and guest services and in the Nickelodeon Universe theme park inside the Bloomington, Minn., mall. Citcon’s service enables Chinese tourists to find merchants that accept Alipay and WeChat Pay. …

Point-of-sale system provider POSaBIT Inc. announced nine stores of the Starbuds recreational marijuana-dispensary chain will use its POS system. Though POSaBIT, in its press release, did not disclose specifically which payments Starbuds will accept via the POS system, its Web site lists debit card and cryptocurrency acceptance as alternatives to …

One reason China’s Ant Financial Services Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd. are interested in facilitating mobile payments for Chinese travelers in foreign markets, including the United States, is that both companies are topping out in their home market. Combined, Ant’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay controlled an estimated $15.5 trillion …

With First Data Corp.’s stock on the rise, KKR & Co. Inc., the investment firm that controls most of the payment processor’s voting shares, is planning a secondary stock offering that will reduce its stake but still leave it firmly in control. First Data announced Monday that an affiliate of …

The FBI privately warned banks on Friday that cybercriminals are preparing a big “ATM cashout” operation, a choreographed global scheme in which fraudsters hack a bank or payment processor, plant malware that attempts to disable banks’ ATM withdrawal limits and related transaction controls, and use cloned payment cards to withdraw potentially …