Competitive Strategies

Publicly-traded payments companies once again have rewarded their investors, with a basket of shares from 29 firms posting a mean, or average, return of 23.6% in the first quarter to handily beat three major market indexes, according to Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. The market is rebounding in 2019, with …

Apple Inc.’s forthcoming Apple Card is another push from the computing giant to move payments into a digital realm under Apple’s control, according to analysts. Apple last week announced the card, which bears a Mastercard Inc. brand and will be issued by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The product, which eschews …

Wells Fargo & Co. has introduced contactless credit and debit cards for point-of-sale transactions. Information on how many cards will be issued was not immediately available. Tapping at ATMs will be introduced nationwide later this year at more than 13,000 machines, the bank said. Advanced Solutions International, a software developer …

Huntington Bank launched the Zelle peer-to-peer payments service on its mobile and online banking service. Payment Data Systems Inc. said its FiCentive subsidiary will provide its Akimbo commercial prepaid Mastercard-branded cards to the Bowen Center, a behavioral-health company. Zapt, an on-demand platform that lets customers schedule household moves, said it …

The payments industry’s relatively rapid move into digital transactions and broader business software is doing much to fuel the consolidation of big payments providers, according to an analysis posted Friday. Just since January, the industry has witnessed deals that will see Fiserv Inc. acquire industry giant First Data Corp. in …

NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network, reported 27 billion ACH transactions for 2018, including 23 billion on the network and 4.1 billion off-network transactions, including mostly on-us volume. PayPal Holdings Inc. is closing two offices in Hunt Valley, Md., and will lay off their 380 workers …

The economy is still humming along, but that doesn’t mean independent sales organization owners and executives are having an easy time finding capital when they need or want it. “The credit markets are tight for the payments-industry space,” Jon Engleking, chief operating officer at Super G Capital LLC, said this …

Ten years after remote deposit capture became a commercial proposition, banks that offer the service are progressively allowing customers to deposit larger and larger sums. Indeed, as of this month, slightly more than half are applying per-item limits somewhere between $2,001 and $5,000, compared to 49% a year ago and …

Spectrum Concessions has chosen a mobile-ordering app from Noble Inc. to allow customers at several Spectrum venues to order and pay for food and drinks with a smart phone. The venues include the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, the Long Center in Austin, Texas, and the Hennepin Theatre Trust in Minneapolis. …

Regulators and the states currently are more active than Congress on issues affecting the payments industry, according to the Electronic Transactions Association’s point person on governmental affairs. The divided Congress probably won’t pass any major payments-related legislation before the 2020 elections, says Scott Talbott, a senior vice president at the …