Competitive Strategies

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Buoyed by seismic political and financial events, the Bitcoin digital currency is picking up momentum in both its value and its adoption. Blockchain, a U.K. company that offers Bitcoin services, last week celebrated having issued 10 million wallets since its founding in 2011. That’s a doubling in …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews New York-based iPayment Holdings Inc. has named O.B. Rawls IV chief executive and president and charged the veteran payments executive with guiding the payments company’s plans to increase sales . Rawls, whose prior experience includes First Data Corp., also joins the iPayment board of directors. He has …

Terminal maker Ingenico Group introduced its first Android-based mobile point-of-sale payment device, the APOS. The portable terminal includes a front and rear camera and accepts payments based on EMV, mag-stripe, and near-field communication. Cubic Transportation Systems announced it has been awarded a $4.8 million contract modification from the Maryland Transit …

• Payments-services provider ACI Worldwide Inc. said it expects the rate of attempted online fraud in the United States during the holiday shopping season will increase 43% over the same period last year, based on transaction data it has seen so far. This increase follows U.S. adoption of EMV cards at the …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Monday officially launched its Chase Pay mobile app, announcing users can now download the wallet and use it to pay at more than 7,500 Starbucks Corp. outlets and at almost 1,400 Best Buy Co. Inc. stores to start with. The app, …

• ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics plc announced an expanded relationship with Carnival Cruise Line that adds Cardtronics ATMs to the crew areas of Carnival’s 25-ship fleet and makes Cardtronics Carnival’s exclusive ATM provider for both guests and crew. Cardtronics will have two ATMs for passengers and two for crew …

Recreational marijuana is now legal in a growing number of states, but cash remains the dominant payment method. Now, however, CanPay, a Littleton, Colo.-based payments provider, has developed a digital payment option that allows legal marijuana retailers to directly debit a consumer’s checking account from the point of sale. Typically, …

• The U.S. Supreme Court gave the green light to class-action lawsuits by ATM operators and consumers accusing Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and several U.S. banks of conspiring to inflate the prices of ATM access fees in violation of antitrust law, Reuters reported. The justices dismissed two related cases they earlier had …

• Two merchant organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a U.S. Department of Justice filing that asks the full panel of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear a 6-year-old case alleging anti-steering rules established by American Express Co. are anti-competitive. A three-judge panel of that court ruled …

By Peter Lucas @DTPaymentNews Sweden-based e-commerce payments provider Klarna continues to expand its footprint in the United States by doubling its user base and adding new features to enhance the user experience. More than 2 million U.S. consumers now use Klarna’s streamlined checkout service, generating hundreds of millions of dollars …