Competitive Strategies

Zelle, the bank-backed person-to-person payments network, says a daily average of 65,000 consumers enrolled in the service in the third quarter, helping to push its volume to more than 60 million P2P payments valued at $17.5 billion. Zelle, which is owned by Early Warning Services LLC, says more than 50 …

Almost as many merchants—65%—seek to increase transaction volumes by reducing identity verification thresholds as do those—74%—that try to reduce fraudulent transactions through more effective verification methods. That quandary surfaced in the “Lost in Transaction Vol. II” report released Thursday by Paysafe Group plc. With a focus on fraud, including consumer …

Marking Apple Pay’s third anniversary, an Apple Inc. executive Sunday night outlined an ambition to make the wallet usable in a wide range of what the company calls “everyday” events in people’s lives. “This [Apple Pay] is the future of everyday spend,” declared Jennifer Bailey, vice president for Internet services …

With Venmo accounting for a swiftly growing share of PayPal’s total payment volume, the company’s top brass left no doubt on Thursday they are eager to start making the peer-to-peer payment service start paying its way. “We [now] begin to monetize Venmo,” PayPal chief executive Dan Schulman told equity analysts …

First Data Corp. made it official: it is acquiring merchant processor BluePay Holdings Inc. for $760 million in cash. BluePay processes $19 billion annually for 77,000 merchants and is integrated into more than 450 software platforms. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. First Data inadvertently …

Mastercard Inc. is doing away with a rule requiring merchants to get signatures for transactions made with its credit and debit cards in the United States and Canada. Announced early Thursday, Mastercard’s rule change goes into effect April 13, 2018, allowing issuers, merchants, and processors time to make adjustments, though …

Issuers, merchants, and processors all share the same dilemma when attempting to authenticate an online identity. They are bedeviled by personally identifiable information easily accessible to criminals that they can use to spoof authentic consumers. In response, Visa Inc. on Thursday announced the Visa ID Intelligence service, which it says …

From the Oops Department: First Data Corp. early Thursday quickly removed from its Web site an inadvertently posted press release saying it had a deal to acquire independent sales organization BluePay Holdings Inc. “First Data confirmed that it is currently in discussions with BluePay with respect to a potential transaction, …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is making a big move into the world of independent software vendors and payment facilitators with a planned acquisition of WePay Inc. that the nation’s largest bank announced late Tuesday. Redwood City, Calif.-based WePay develops payments-related application programming interfaces (APIs) for software developers to put into …

Consumers using the Phillips 66, Conoco, or 76-branded smart-phone apps soon will be able to pay for fuel using their checking accounts thanks to an integration with Buy It Mobility Networks, a New York City-based payment and customer relationship management platform. Announced Tuesday, the service will be available soon, says …