Competitive Strategies

CellPoint Digital announced early Tuesday Southwest Airlines Co. will begin using its cloud-native payment-orchestration platform. The platform, which launched last month, is designed for airlines and travel companies and supports multiple payment methods, including credit cards, travel credits, alternative payment methods, and Southwest Rapid Rewards frequent-flier points. Consumers can also …

On-demand delivery platform DoorDash Inc. says Dollar General Corp. is the latest retailer to accept SNAP/EBT online payments in the DoorDash marketplace. SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that uses its own electronic benefits transfer payments service. The Dollar General addition of more than 16,000 stores nearly doubles the …

Buy now, pay later provider Klarna AB announced early Monday it is partnering with digital wallet provider OnePay to be the exclusive provider of installment loans to Walmart Inc.’s customers in the United States. Klarna is replacing rival Affirm Holdings Inc. as the retailer’s installment loan provider. Affirm had been …

Square and Cash App parent Block Inc. announced late Thursday its Square Financial Services Inc. industrial bank has received approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to make consumer loans through Block’s Cash App Borrow feature. Square Financial Services launched as a Salt Lake City-based, FDIC-chartered industrial bank in 2021 …

Order.co, a business-to-business payments service, announced a number of enhancements, including real-time transaction tracking and what are said to be more robust security measures. Payments provider Shape Technologies said it will work with PXP, a technology platform, to help independent sales organizations, independent software vendors, and payment facilitators offer services that would …

A leading merchant association and a group representing stablecoin interests early Thursday threw their weight behind efforts to bring stablecoins into the payments mainstream in the United States. The move by the Merchant Payments Coalition and the Payment Choice Coalition seeks to “promote their shared goals of enhancing innovation, competition, …

The Electronic Payments Coalition has launched the latest salvo in its offensive against legislation seeking to regulate credit card interchange. This time the thrust takes aim at federal and state legislative efforts. At the federal level, EPC executive chairman Richard Hunt said during a press conference late Wednesday morning the …

Fortis Payment Systems LLC early Thursday announced it is receiving a capital infusion from a new investor, Audax Private Equity, as well as from an existing investor, Lovell Minnick Partners. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. A privately held company, Fortis actively began seeking new investors about six …

As financial institutions help their customers counter fraud, Feedzai is releasing a tool to help FIs better identify potential scams. Dubbed ScamAlert, the service, which incorporates an artificial-intelligence utility, can help identify tactics criminals use to exploit consumers. Many consumers may initially fall for a scam through a phishing email; …

Account-to-account payments provider Dwolla Inc. has launched an integration to open-banking platform Plaid Inc. The integration is expected to enable Dwolla users to verify accounts and check account balances in real time through a single vendor and application programming interface. Dwolla announced its partnership with Plaid late last year. The …