Competitive Strategies

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 …

As tourists from China visit the United States—they are now the fifth largest group of travelers to this country—they want to use familiar payment methods. Now, Alipay, the digital wallet from China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., will be accepted in New York City and Las Vegas taxis using VeriFone Systems …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has been talking for more than a year about allowing users of its popular Venmo person-to-person payments app to use the app to pay merchants. On Tuesday, the payments company threw the door wide open for Venmo, announcing it can now be used to pay at as …

Visa Inc. reported Tuesday that it has invested in Billtrust and is working with the business-to-business payments provider to streamline the reconciliation of B2B payments and increase the automation of virtual card payments for financial institutions and their corporate customers. The companies did not reveal the size of Visa’s investment, …

Global Payments Inc. is making the transaction data its merchants generate easier for them to access and use. The Atlanta-based processor launched Heartland Analytics Monday. The service, available to U.S. merchants, is designed for small and mid-size businesses in the restaurant and hospitality industries. The service enables them to view …

Money transfers took a step toward app-based processing on Monday with news that BBVA is launching a service that will let persons in the United States use their smart phones to send money to recipients in Mexico. Later, the service will expand to the Caribbean and the rest of Latin …

International Business Machines Corp. on Monday announced a new service for financial institutions that uses blockchain technology to reduce settlement times and lower transaction costs. IBM is offering the service with Stellar.org., a Silicon Valley-based non-profit that runs the open-source Stellar blockchain network to bring low-cost financial services to low-income …

Bank of America Corp. reported Friday that it handled $4 billion in Zelle person-to-person payments in the third quarter, up 67% from $2.4 billion a year ago before the Zelle brand went live this past June. Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase and Co., the nation’s largest bank, on Thursday reported a 13% …

The first big wave of Apple Pay contracts are expiring this month, and a big question for both Apple Inc. and the financial institutions that committed to support the computing giant’s mobile-payments app is whether to renew, and under what terms, in the face of less-than-spectacular results for mobile payments …