Competitive Strategies

Square is making a big play for independent sales organizations, a merchant-sales model it shunned 16 years ago in favor of direct acquiring. Square, the point-of-sale and acquiring unit of Block Inc., is one of the sponsors of the Western States Acquirers Association conference this week in Palm Desert, Calif. …

Digital-payments platform Input 1 will work with OneShield, a technology provider for the insurance industry, to allow insurance companies to use Input 1 as an integrated service with OneShield. Guesty, a management platform for short-term rentals, announced it has closed on its acquisition of Smily, a developer of property-management technology. Both systems …

American Water, said to be the largest regulated water and wastewater utility in the U.S., has adopted VXconnect from software developer VertexOne. VXconnect offers a mobile app by which customers can manage payments. Toast announced it has signed Kung Fu Tea for point-of-sale payments processing and related technology. Kung Fu Tea operates 330 …

Convenience-store chain Kwik Fill, with more than 300 locations in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, will use PAR Technology Corp.’s PAR Retail service for payments, loyalty, and a mobile app. In related news, Transaction Network Services Inc., or TNS, says a new partnership with Unattended Card Payments will boost its …

Instant payments platform Pidgin said it is working with Millennium Corporate Credit Union, which provides services to other credit unions, to enable nearly 300 credit unions working with Millennium to use instant payments services, such as FedNow, RTP, and stablecoin access. Bread Financial announced a long-term renewal of its credit card program with …

Payments processor Talus launched ReadyPoint, an offering that allows merchants to accept payments on mobile phones through softPOS tap-to-pay technology from Ingenico. A new report from Visa Inc., called “The Great Indoors: How the ‘Couch Economy’ Is Redefining Consumer Spending Habits,” found that more than 17% of payment cards are used for streaming …

Sole proprietors on the Cash App platform may have a way to accept payments from consumers who also have Cash App accounts. Cash App, a part of Block Inc., says a test of Cash App-funded payments to a sole proprietor with a Cash App account is under way now. It …

MoneyGram launched its MoneyGram Card, a Visa-branded card backed by stablecoins and developed in partnership with Rain, a provider of stablecoin services. The card is available now in Colombia, with plans to launch in other markets over coming months. Flex Dental Solutions said its FlexPayments service will offer buy now, pay later …

Having launched Mastercard Agent Suite in January, the card brand is expanding the service to make it easier for merchants to create and deploy AI-enabled shopping experiences. It also is launching Mastercard Agent Connect, a service that helps merchants, AI agents, platforms, and payment providers connect and transact via a …