Competitive Strategies

Square Inc.’s future may include public ownership if reports late last week that it filed for a confidential initial public offering are correct. Both BloombergBusiness and The Wall Street Journal reported the filing, permitted under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which enables companies with less than $1 billion …

Tokenization is not a new concept. Yet, while the process has improved card security across a variety of industries, there still exists myriad misinformation about why it’s important and how to best implement it. I’m going to argue that an approach called host card emulation (HCE) is the safest and …

Prepaid provider InComm Holdings Inc. and smart card maker Gemalto NV have devised a new service that enables mobile-wallet providers and merchants to offer and accept prepaid cards loaded onto near-field communication (NFC)-equipped smart phones. The InComm Mobile Platform uses Gemalto’s technology—namely its Trusted Service Hub for the interconnectivity, data …

  Only 42% of consumers would consider or have already bought wearable technology. That’s one result from a Bank of America Corp. survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults. Wearables garner much attention because of their mobile-payments capabilities. These devices—mostly watches—enable consumers to make mobile payments without using a smart …

After a 13-year absence, online-payments provider PayPal Holdings Inc. debuted Monday morning on the Nasdaq Stock Market as an independent company following its spin-off Friday from parent eBay Inc. Investors looking for growth opportunities in payments liked what they saw, pushing PayPal’s price up approximately 6% and valuing the company …

First Data Corp. filed a registration statement Monday for an initial public stock offering, a long-anticipated move that the highly leveraged payment processor expects will help reduce its debt. The statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission does not say how many shares First Data plans to issue or …

The annual MidWest Acquirers Conference concluded Thursday in Chicago with a series of sessions addressing several hot-button payments issues. Here’s a rundown of the more salient remarks: —Whither the independent sales organization? With the fundamentals of the acquiring business rapidly turning towards mobile and cloud-based technology, ISOs are finding themselves …

Students from outside the United States are flooding the country to attend colleges, universities, even secondary schools, and that presents a payments problem for them and their families. Wire transfers, the typical way for foreigners to pay tuition and other fees, are cumbersome and expensive. Enter peerTransfer Corp., a 4-year-old …

On the eve of his company’s separation from long-time parent eBay Inc., PayPal Inc.’s new chief executive on Thursday let it be known he intends to dramatically boost usage among PayPal’s 169 million active accounts by stressing single-touch checkouts and new capabilities like Xoom, the online-remittance service it is buying …

While doubts persist about how appealing mobile wallets really are for consumers, a majority—54%—would use a mobile wallet if it were accepted at all merchants. That’s one finding from a Blackhawk Engagement Solutions Inc. survey, released Tuesday, on shopper behavior. Blackhawk Engagement Solutions is a unit of Pleasanton, Calif.-based Blackhawk …