Competitive Strategies

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Ever since Apple Pay debuted in 2014, payments pundits have wondered how fast mobile payments would catch on with consumers. The near-simultaneous arrival of two rivals, Android Pay and Samsung Pay, last fall only made the question more urgent. And now data is emerging that indicates …

Merchant-services company Harbortouch Payments LLC has a new private-equity investor in a deal valued at more than $500 million. Searchlight Capital Partners L.P. announced Wednesday it made an investment in Allentown, Pa.-based Harbortouch. Jared Isaacman, Harbortouch chief executive and founder, says the deal is valued at more than $500 million, …

Canadian payment processor Beanstream says its U.S. foray is hoping to tap into its parent company’s international reach as Beanstream USA targets software developers and integrators. Beanstream’s U.S. effort—announced earlier this month—is meant to get a piece of the independent software vendor and value-added reseller market that so many payments …

• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is planning to launch an app in South Korea that will streamline online payments for users of Samsung Pay, Reuters reported, citing a report in the Electronic Times. The app, dubbed Samsung Pay mini, will also be compatible with all Android and Apple Inc. devices, …

Wells Fargo Bank N.A.’s announcement Tuesday that it would launch a mobile wallet with payments capability built into the Android version of its banking app could be a win for the bank, and herald similar moves by other banks. That’s the assessment from Daniel Van Dyke, an analyst at Javelin …

With more and more consumers getting accustomed to shopping online and on mobile devices, merchants are losing more and more sales to checkout abandonment. “Conversion rates aren’t where we’d like to see them,” said Joe Walent, a senior analyst at Mercator Advisory Group, a payments consultancy. Walent, who spoke Tuesday …

• Wells Fargo & Co. announced its Wells Fargo Wallet will launch this summer and be incorporated into the banking giant’s mobile-banking app for Android devices, giving customers the ability to make contactless near-field communication payments directly from the app. The app, developed in-house, also will work at Wells Fargo …

Confronted with pokey EMV transactions, consumers and merchants in the United States may be eagerly looking for the contactless revolution to start. But in the United Kingdom, the wave-and-pay method is already picking up quite a head of steam. Consumers in the U.K. performed just over 1 billion contactless transactions …

Two long-time members of Green Dot Corp.’s board of directors who were up for re-election suddenly resigned Sunday, just ahead of the company’s contested annual shareholder meeting Monday that potentially could lead to the ouster of company founder and chief executive Steven W. Streit. The Pasadena, Calif.-based prepaid card provider …

Green Dot Corp. shareholders re-elected chairman and chief executive Steven W. Streit to the company’s board of directors Monday after a proxy fight, but they also elected two nominees from dissident shareholder Harvest Capital Strategies LLC, which has called for Streit’s ouster. Harvest Capital, which says that Streit is not …