Competitive Strategies

The acquiring business is accustomed to a slow rate of change, but that deliberate pace is masking radical underlying shifts in how merchants handle payments and whom they deal with for processing services, according to research at First Annapolis Consulting, Annapolis, Md. Change comes so slowly in this business that …

A central Illinois grocery-store chain will expand online and add mobile payments beginning this fall. The service enables consumers to use credit and debit cards along with electronic benefits transfer cards to pay for orders, says Ithaca, N.Y.-based Rosie Applications Inc., the vendor providing the technology. The move by Quincy, …

Moneris Solutions USA, the U.S. arm of Canada-based Moneris Solutions Corp., appears to have suitors, according to a recent Bloomberg.com report. Moneris is a joint venture between RBC Financial Group and BMO Bank of Montreal. Bloomberg.com reports that merchant processor Vantiv Inc. and Warburg Pincus LLC, a New York-based private …

• ATM network operator Cardtronics plc announced organizational changes that include chief financial officer Edward H. West taking on the additional role of chief operations officer and North American Business Group president David Dove leaving the company later this year. Jonathan Simpson-Dent, who had been managing director of Cardtronics Europe, …

The password is one of the oldest authentication tools known to man, and now it is rapidly becoming the least respected among security experts for use online or in-app. Consumers’ use of easily guessed codes, coupled with a recent barrage of data breaches, has these experts predicting passwords will fade …

U.S. Bank tried, but it couldn’t make its $6.95 fee for real-time person-to-person payments stick. The nation’s fifth-largest bank by assets disclosed Wednesday that such payments are now free. The Minneapolis-based bank says it was the first to go live with real-time payments over the bank-developed clearXchange P2P payments network, …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday announced its Walmart Pay mobile wallet is now available in all of its 4,612 U.S. stores in all 50 states. The rollout’s completion comes about seven months after the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing behemoth introduced the product and about 10 weeks after first making the app …

• U.S. Bank said customers can now make free, real-time person-to-person payments via Early Warning Services LLC’s clearXchange network; the bank charged a $6.95 fee for real-time payments when it went live on clearXchange earlier this year. • Processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc. announced top-level executive changes with president …

• American Express Co. plans to roll out an online loan platform this year that will challenge other small-business lenders, including Square Inc. and On Deck Capital Inc., Bloomberg reported. • Independent sales organization Pace Payment Systems announced it is working with @Pay LLC on an integrated text-to-pay service. • …

During the last 20 years, I’ve worked for, consulted for, partnered with, or analyzed hundreds of payments companies and thousands of other firms that are in some way connected with payments companies, either as customers, prospects, or partners. Many of those companies have been highly successful, some explosively so. Others …