Greenlight Financial Technology Inc. has partnered with Google Wallet to enable its debit card to be loaded into the Google Fitbit Ace LTE smart watch. The partnership is expected to help parents teach their children how to manage their spending and finances through Greenlight’s banking app, the company says. The …
Read More »Toast Sites Balloon 29% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/7/24
Hospitality point-of-sale maker Toast Inc. said it now serves 120,000 merchant locations as of the end of the second quarter, a 29% increase from the same period a year ago. Its gross payment volume jumped 26% year-over-year to $40.5 billion. Toast posted second quarter revenue of $1.24 billion, a 27% increase from …
Read More »Walgreens Adds Instacart Online SNAP and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/6/24
Drug store chain Walgreens announced it is enabling online SNAP/EBT payment acceptance via Instacart nationwide at more than 7,500 Walgreens stores, including more than 100 Duane Reade stores in New York. Most Walgreens locations already accept SNAP/EBT payments in store. Walgreens also added DoorDash Inc.’s SNAP/EBT acceptance earlier this year. In related news, Instacart also announced …
Read More »Fiserv’s Small Business Index Improves in July But Restaurants Lag
Major payments providers have focused in recent years on signing and providing devices and services for restaurants, but that big bet may be taking at least a temporary beating, according to the latest Small Business Index from the big processor Fiserv Inc. The overall index, which is derived from Milwaukee-based …
Read More »Mastercard’s Chief Executive Laments a Broken Interchange Deal
Mastercard Inc.’s chief executive early Wednesday deplored the recent collapse of a key interchange settlement and highlighted the card company’s rapid progress in tokenization, a key technology that masks actual card data from potential cyberthieves. Pointing to a U.S. District Court judge’s rejection last month of an agreement between merchants and …
Read More »The Nuances of Surcharging And Cash Discounting Draw Many Questions From VARs and ISVs
Value-added resellers and independent software vendors enticed by the attractiveness of surcharging and cash-discount programs find there’s no one-size-fits-all approach for enrolling merchants. Questions about the programs abound at RetailNow 2024, the annual conference sponsored by the Retail Solutions Providers Association and in progress this week in Las Vegas. The …
Read More »How Acquirers Prepare for AI’s Utility in Retention and More
Artificial intelligence tools may still be in development, but their utility for acquirers is quickly becoming apparent. “A lot of people think it’s a ‘nice to have,’ but it’s no longer a ‘nice to have,’” Sebastian Builes, cofounder and chief executive at Arcum, a merchant-retention firm that uses AI, told …
Read More »Card Issuer Marqeta Will Support Visa’s Flexible Credential
Marqeta Inc. early Thursday said it has become the first card-issuing platform to adopt technology announced earlier this year by Visa Inc. that lets cardholders toggle among a variety of payment methods for a single card rather than be restricted to the payment type indicated by the card itself. Oakland, …
Read More »Tap-to-Pay And Value-Added Services Help Fuel Visa As It Pursues a New Interchange Settlement
Growth in contactless and peer-to-peer payments, e-commerce, and value-added services were among the highlights discussed with stock analysts late Tuesday during Visa Inc.’s third-quarter earnings call for the card company’s fiscal year 2024. Visa’s Tap-to-Pay contactless payments technology has penetrated multiple markets, accounting for 80% of all face-to-face Visa transactions …
Read More »i2C’s Corporate Card Plans and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/22/24
U.S.-based digital banking and payments platform i2c Inc. said it will work with Beyon Money Business, a banking-technology provider, to launch a corporate expense card program for small and mid-size companies, first in Bahrain and later more widely. Ackroo Inc., a point-of-sale technology provider and gift card platform, announced revenue for the …
Read More »