Competitive Strategies

The recently completed acquisition of Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) by Global Payments Inc. is “the best of the bunch” among the three megamergers in the payment-processing industry this year, investment research firm Morningstar Inc. says in a new report. The Global-TSYS deal “has the most capacity to reduce costs …

The Fed has amassed enormous—in practice, unaccountable—power, and taken roles natural to government and to the private sector. It’s the central bank, paramount financial-system regulator, and a payments operator. It shouldn’t, however, undertake activities better and naturally performed in the private sphere.  The latest example: On its own prerogative, the …

Fiserv Inc.’s acquisition of First Data Corp. this year was the first of a trio of big mergers that has made 2019 the year of the megadeals in payments. On Thursday, a key Fiserv executive close to the action explained how the $22-billion acquisition served as the capstone to a …

Policymakers have much work ahead when reviewing cryptocurrencies like the proposed Libra, a European regulator said Wednesday. In related news, a cryptocurrency payment plugin debuts for WordPress. The Libra cryptocurrency project led by Facebook Inc. has “undoubtedly been a wake-up call for central banks and policymakers,” said Benoit Coeure, a …

American Express Co. posted an online guide for consumers about contactless cards. Beginning in July of 2019, all newly issued AmEx consumer and small-business cards are contactless-enabled, and starting next month all newly issued corporate cards will be contactless-enabled.P97 Networks, a provider of mobile payments and rewards programs for petroleum retailers, …

One of the longest-running antitrust lawsuits in the payments industry is getting into gear again with a new request by independent ATM deployers for class certification in their action against Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. The National ATM Council Inc. (NAC) trade group and 13 ATM independent sales organizations originally …

More types of retailers and e-commerce merchants are facing more fraud attempts as the number of attacks increased for every merchant type covered in the 2019 True Cost of Fraud report issued Tuesday by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. And with the growth comes an increase in the cost to counter the …

Merchant processor Square Inc. on Nov. 1 will drop its longstanding 2.75% point-of-sale rate for a new pricing plan of 2.6% plus 10 cents. Based on recent U.S. purchase dollar- and transaction-volume statistics from the bank card networks, Digital Transactions News calculates the new pricing plan will generate about 1% …

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority fined PayPal Holdings Inc. £250,000 ($309,700) in connection with PayPal’s $2.2 billion acquisition of Sweden-based processor iZettle AB last year; the regulator said PayPal violated an order not to integrate its U.K. business with iZettle during an investigation by cross-selling services to U.K. consumers. PayPal said it …

Merchant-services companies may already have the best tool for courting independent software vendors and software developers. It’s the sales model. That’s the word from a panel at last week’s Western States Acquirers Association conference in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Many payment providers are looking to integrated payments, often an integral part …