Competitive Strategies

• Payments-technology vendor Cardtek announced its Digital Enablement Platform for wearables payments. The platform relies on wearables chips from NXP Semiconductors and is aimed at integrating payment cards, transit tickets, and other services in wearable devices. Cardtek cites research from CCS Insight indicating there will be 411 million wearable devices …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Payment card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc. rode the EMV chip card wave over much of the past two years, but slowing sales in the third quarter took a big bite out of its revenues and profits. “Our third-quarter results were below expectations, primarily due to continued …

• Payment security technology provider MagTek Inc. and Payment Alliance International (PAI), an ATM independent sales organization and processor, said PAI now supports MagTek’s QwickCodes system for cardless transactions and will deploy it across its nationwide network of more than 74,000 ATMs. • Entertainment operator Live Nation Entertainment Inc. said mobile-ticket …

By Kevin Woodward @DTPaymentNews More U.S consumers are using mobile peer-to-peer payments than are using a smart phone to make a point-of-sale purchase, research firm eMarketer Inc. says in a research note. While only 19.4% of consumers made a mobile payment in a store in the preceding six months, 24.9% …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews The U.S. election is just 24 hours away, but if it were up to the readers of Digital Transactions News, Donald Trump would be the next President of the United States. He’d be bound for the Oval Office, however, with a very weak mandate. Republican candidate …

By Jim Daly@DTPayment News First Data Corp. said attrition in its small and mid-size North American merchant portfolio eased off in the third quarter, but chief executive Frank Bisignano cautioned that getting attrition down to acceptable levels will take more time. “Q3 saw a meaningful reduction in the annualized attrition …

• In yet another event related to payment card data security at hotels, Sentinel Hotel announced it is investigating an incident involving cards used at its front desks after receiving reports from some of its guests of unauthorized charges. • While 22% of consumers overall prefer to receive coupons through …

• A Colorado State University management professor and a Ph.D. student in finance at the University of Utah co-wrote a blog post saying that the “legal incoherence” in federal policy regarding financial services for legal marijuana businesses is hurting an otherwise fast-growing industry that in Colorado alone generated nearly $1 …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Add Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to the list of merchants that will accept Chase Pay transactions. JPMorgan Chase & Co., backer of the nascent Chase Pay mobile wallet, says the massive retailer will begin accepting the bank’s payment service in more than 5,000 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores, …

• Lengthy negotiations for some large contract renewals caused payments software and processing provider ACI Worldwide Inc. to reduce its 2016 financial guidance; the company posted third-quarter revenues of $217 million, down 9% from a year earlier, and a loss of $9.83 million compared with net income of $14.8 million …