Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
The cessation of the cobranded Costco Wholesale Corp. credit card issued by American Express Co. moved another step closer with Monday’s announcement that Citigroup will buy the AmEx Costco portfolio for an unspecified sum. Citi’s acquisition of the portfolio is expected to close this summer. That’s when Citi will begin to …
Read More »Sky’s the Limit for Amazon Payments As It Handles Onboard Purchases for Southwest
Many consumers will find it easier to make onboard entertainment purchases when flying on Southwest Airlines Inc. now that the airline is accepting Pay with Amazon. Announced Wednesday, the service enables Southwest passengers who have stored payment data in their Amazon.com Inc. accounts to pay with those credentials. To pay for …
Read More »Pin4 Extends Cardless ATM Withdrawals to Non-Bank ATM Operators
HalCash North America is making its cardless-cash ATM service available in four U.S. cities prior to eventual national expansion later this year. Under the Pin4 moniker, the HalCash North America service enables consumers to securely send cash that recipients can retrieve at participating ATMs without having to insert a card …
Read More »Green Dot Launches New Products, Aims To Be a ‘Fin-Tech Powered Branchless Bank’
Green Dot Corp. announced a number of a new products Wednesday and said it was getting into lending in order to generate new revenues and expand beyond its prepaid card base. Under pressure from a large investor to boost its bottom line and flagging stock price, Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot reported …
Read More »For the First Time, MasterCard Opens up MDES to a Third Party With G&D Deal
Ever since MasterCard Inc. introduced its tokenization platform nearly 18 months ago, no third party has been allowed to offer the product, called the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service. That changed Tuesday with the company’s announcement that Giesecke & Devrient is connecting its Convego CloudPay platform to MDES and will be …
Read More »Chase Pay Takes First Important Stride Forward With a Deal for Acceptance at 7,500 Starbucks Stores
When JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its own mobile wallet, Chase Pay, in October, it said the new payments service would begin rolling out by the middle of this year, and on Tuesday the money-center bank announced an important step in that direction. The fledgling service, which is up against …
Read More »MasterCard And Visa Jockey To Cash in on Expected Jump in Payments on Wearables
Payments made via so-called wearables are forecast to soar in the years to come, so Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are positioning themselves to cash in with announcements made Monday at the huge Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. MasterCard unveiled a partnership with WiseKey, a Swiss company whose security …
Read More »Thompson Investments Steps in to Acquire Troubled Powa Technologies
Powa Technologies Ltd., the troubled startup behind PowaTag and the PowaPOS line of mobile point-of-sale gear, is being acquired by Thompson Investments, according to a terse announcement released late Friday. No terms were released. Before Thompson stepped in, London-based Powa Technologies had been reported to be close to appointing management consultancy …
Read More »Competition And Pricing Could Have Been Culprits in Flint Mobile’s Apparent Demise
Flint Mobile Inc., a startup whose app allowed merchants to process transactions by using their smart-phone camera to scan customers’ card numbers, abruptly ceased operations earlier this month and has arranged for merchants to switch over to Stripe for processing. That’s according to MerchantMaverick.com, a merchant-processing review site Flint, which …
Read More »With Its Payroll Service, Square Seeks Cross-Sell Avenues to New, Larger Merchants
Square Inc. introduced its payroll service for small businesses last June in California, and in the eight months since then Square Payroll has proven to be popular enough that the company added two more states in November and on Wednesday said it is expanding into five more. But while Square …
Read More »