Competitive Strategies

• Payment technology provider ACI Worldwide Inc. said it will make its UP Immediate Payments service available to financial institutions and credit unions of all sizes. • Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. renewed its contract with Caesars Entertainment Corp. • In a Mastercard Inc. promotion, consumers who use a Mastercard credit, debit, or prepaid card at a …

While entities such as the Federal Reserve and the automated clearing house work out methods for faster payments, financial institutions are also investigating the blockchain for real-time money movement. That concept took a step toward reality with an announcement Friday by Spain’s BBVA that it had completed what it says …

Unattended tire-inflation and vacuum services for cars long have accepted credit and debit cards as well as cash. Now, one provider, Irving, Texas-based AIR-serv, is taking that a step further by making contactless payments the sole option at more than 6,500 locations throughout Canada. Payments provider MONEXGroup says it is …

• Santander Bank N.A. announced it is now supporting Apple Pay for its Mastercard credit and debit cards. • Healthy Solutions for Pets, a pet-supplement company, has hired Orderhouse to build an e-commerce store. Orderhouse’s services include technology, fulfillment, and payments. • Vantiv Inc. will provide ATM and debit and credit card processing …

Shopify Inc. is often thought of as a platform for smaller e-commerce merchants, but it offers processing services for some 65,000 physical-world sellers, as well, and on Thursday it unveiled a new EMV card reader that features a Bluetooth low-energy link to mobile devices and what the company says is …

Are so-called bots the future of commerce? The digital gadgets took another step in that direction Tuesday with a flurry of announcements at a Facebook conference regarding new bot launches on the social network’s massive Messenger app. Mastercard Inc. said it has enabled its Masterpass digital wallet for use with …

U.S. Bancorp, owner of the big merchant acquirer Elavon Inc., generated 36% of its first-quarter non-interest income from payments, according to the Minneapolis-based company’s first-quarter earnings report released Wednesday. U.S. Bancorp reported $849 million of its total $2.33 billion in non-interest income came from payment sources such merchant fees, interchange …

Offering a surcharging or cash-discounting program to merchants has obvious revenue benefits to merchants, but they have the potential to grow an independent sales organization’s or acquirer’s bottom line, too. Such programs enable merchants to cover their costs to accept credit card transactions by adding a fee to the purchase …

• USA Technologies Inc. announced it will work with point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico to make Ingenico contact-EMV hardware available to providers of vending machines and other unattended terminals that use USAT’s network for contactless payments. • In related news, Mastercard Inc. said it is making its Masterpass digital wallet available for purchases …

When PayPal Holdings Inc. made deals last year with Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., Citigroup Inc., and Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), one key part of the agreements was access to the card networks’ tokenization engines to reach bank-issued payment cards. On Tuesday,