Competitive Strategies

Credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc., which disclosed a huge data breach earlier this month, also sustained an apparently separate data breach in March, according to Bloomberg News. Few details about that breach are publicly known. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly has opened a criminal investigation into the sale of Equifax …

Prepaid cards are still popular with Americans, but not quite as popular as in some recent years, according to new findings from Mercator Advisory Group Inc. A Mercator online survey of 3,011 U.S. adults in June found that 56% of respondents had purchased a prepaid card in the preceding 12 …

Showing resilience after recent actions that pummeled its value, Bitcoin shot up from the depths early Monday and was trading above $4,000 again. As of 10:30 Eastern Time, its price stood at $4,056, after plunging as low as $2,981 in recent days on some exchanges, according to Coindesk, which tracks …

Payments provider Aliant Payment Systems now offers Bitcoin acceptance for merchants through a deal with BitPay Inc., a Bitcoin processor, Aliant announced Monday. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Aliant says the relationship makes it one of the first payment-processing companies to offer merchants Bitcoin acceptance. It is doing this, in part, because …

Payments provider Revolution Payments announced an interchange-adjustment service for business-to-business and business-to-government credit cards that automatically attaches details to each transaction that qualify the transactions for level 3 interchange rates, which are less than level 1 and level 2 rates for such transactions. Unattended-payments specialist USA Technologies Inc. announced a partnership with Premier Food Service …

One advantage in providing merchant-acquiring services to 3.6 million U.S. locations is that First Data Corp. has a unique read on how major disasters such as hurricanes affect consumer spending. Statistics from the Atlanta-based processor show that spending spiked in the Miami area just before Hurricane Irma made landfall in …

Payroll-software provider Paychex Inc. introduced same-day debits processing on the automated clearing house. The new functionality allows employers to initiate corrections or reversals the same day the payroll is processed. Under ACH rules, same-day debits started Friday. Frost Bank introduced “Send Money with Zelle” on its Frost app. Zelle is a bank-controlled person-to-person payments network launched earlier …

Bitcoin has taken a beating in recent days, but investors who bought earlier this year are still enjoying handsome returns. Now, some merchants of high-end goods are signing up to accept the virtual currency, hoping to cash in on that wealth effect. Bitcoin was trading at $3,498 early Thursday morning, …

Merchants that process with Vantiv Inc. will have a new option to receive their settlements within minutes in the FastAccess Funding program the processor and program partner Visa Inc. announced Thursday. Merchants typically receive their settlement funds via the automated clearing house, which may take one to three days. Instead …

Citing the recent huge data breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc., the National Retail Federation and other trade groups in a letter to Congressional leaders said any new federal law governing data-breach notifications should apply to all industries that handle consumer data. The groups want a uniform federal standard to replace the …