Competitive Strategies

Small businesses using Square Inc. will be able to use turnkey UPS shipping services integrated into Square Online Store, the acquirer’s e-commerce platform, UPS announced. The Square-UPS deal includes special shipping rates that could be up to 55% off UPS daily rates.Amazon.com Inc. reported it now has more than 150 million Prime members …

Improved online payments, tokenization, and contactless transactions all gained ground in 2019’s last three months for Visa Inc. as the network’s payment volume grew 8% year-over-year. Visa reported total U.S. payment volume of $1.06 trillion in its first quarter of fiscal 2020 ended Dec. 31, a 7.8% increase from $980 …

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on Financial Technology held a hearing Thursday morning titled “Is Cash Still King? Reviewing the Rise of Mobile Payments.” Witnesses included representatives from PayPal, the U.S. Faster Payments Council, the Brookings Institute, Consumer Reports, and a New York City non-profit dedicated to financial …

News emerged Wednesday from PayPal Holdings Inc.’s earnings call that Visa Inc. will serve as the network for a Venmo credit card PayPal announced in October. This development follows by one week PayPal’s announcement that it has struck a deal with UnionPay, China’s payment card giant, to integrate UnionPay cards …

EBay Inc. plans to expand its managed-payments program dramatically starting in the second half of next year, officials said Tuesday. Introduced last year, the program depends on a gateway from Adyen NV and now operates in the United States and Germany. “We will go hard at not only the markets that we’re in …

Digital solutions for very small payments were a hot topic a decade ago, but now the subject is making a comeback in the publishing business, where a slide in print advertising and other revenue sources is pushing publishers to seek new business in digital access. This week, Piano Software Inc., …

As merchants consider updates to their point-of-sale systems this year, many—59%—want to add omnichannel capabilities, finds the 2020 POS/Customer Engagement Survey from Retail Consulting Partners. Conducted in late 2019, the survey collected responses more than 50 North American retailers with annual revenue ranging from $100 million to more than $10 …

PCI Pal, a payments provider for contact centers and other card-not-present businesses, launched PCI Pal Digital to secure transactions on digital channels such as Webchat, social media, email, and SMS.VPay, a digital claims-payment platform, reported a 30% rise in revenue from 2018 to 2019, fueled by a three-year, 180% customer …

Visa Inc. is among backers of an $80-million investment in Currency Cloud Ltd., whose software runs cross-border payments for financial apps, primarily in Europe. The funding round, co-led by Visa and SAP’s venture-funding unit Sapphire, included backing from Google. The funding follows Visa’s $5.3-billion deal to acquire Plaid, whose software enables fintechs …

Mobile remote deposit capture has made big gains in recent years, but there’s still room to improve the service, according to new survey findings. Deficiencies in financial institutions’ mobile-capture offerings include error identification and tracking, unclear notices of funds availability, and overly restrictive risk-control policies, according to Ron Shevlin, director …