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August, 2021

• 2 August

  Square Is Set to Become an Overnight Force In BNPL With Its Afterpay Acquisition

  

  Square Inc.’s acquisition of Afterpay Ltd. is expected to give Square a ready-made product in the hotly competitive buy now, pay later market that it can quickly plug into its consumer and merchant applications to make it an immediate force in BNPL.  Square on Sunday announced it was acquiring Afterpay, …

July, 2021

• 29 July

  Mastercard Outlines a Strong Quarter As It Pursues Strategies in Crypto, 5G, And Open Banking

  

  As they have for rival Visa Inc., transaction volumes are continuing to improve for Mastercard Inc. as world commerce stages its recovery from the impact of the pandemic. “The strong momentum we started the year with accelerated this quarter,” chief executive Michael Miebach said Thursday morning during a session with …
• 22 July

  Visa Agrees to Lay out Nearly $1 Billion to Acquire Britain’s Cross-Border Specialist Currencycloud

  

  Visa Inc. has been concentrating on building out its “network-of-networks” strategy for some time, and it’s latest move in that project came early Thursday with the news that it has agreed to acquire Currency Cloud Ltd., a London-based developer of application programming interfaces that can simplify cross-border payments. The deal values …
• 15 July

  Jumping on the Contactless Trend, Intuit Tries Again to Penetrate the POS Market

  

  Sensing that consumers’ growing preference for contactless-payments options will be permanent, Intuit Inc. on Thursday introduced its QuickBooks Card Reader for small businesses. The terminal, which integrates with QuickBooks Payments, supports what Intuit calls smart-tipping functionality. Businesses can customize three tipping options that are displayed on the card reader as …
• 14 July

  Trust And Security Could Be Big Hurdles As Apple Prepares Its Entry Into BNPL

  

  For Apple Inc. to become a disruptor in the rapidly growing buy now, pay later market, the technology giant is going to have to win consumer’s trust and demonstrate its BNPL platform is secure.  Reports of Apple developing a BNPL product, which the company has internally dubbed Apple Pay Later, …
• 6 July

  Eye on Acquiring: EVO Links With KAL for ATMs in Europe, While Square Kicks off in France

  

  Atlanta-based EVO Payments Inc. is working with global ATM technology provider KAL to allow banks and independent ATM deployers to quickly set up ATMs anywhere in Europe. The new service combines Germany-based KAL’s ATM software with EVO’s payments network, the parties said Tuesday. “We have created a highly efficient method …

June, 2021

• 29 June

  Small Bank, Big Influence: North American Banking Co. Joins Nacha’s Ranks of Direct Members

  Every so often, evidence emerges that size is not necessarily linked to influence. Nacha, the governing body for the nation’s automated clearing house network, on Tuesday announced that North American Banking Co. has joined the ranks of direct members of the association. Direct members constitute a group of more than …
• 25 June

  Digital Channels Remain Popular for Bill Pay As Covid Fades, an ACI Study Finds

  

  Consumers’ use of digital channels to pay bills continues to rise even as the Covid-19 pandemic begins to ease, according to a study by ACI Worldwide Inc. In looking at how consumers’ use of digital channels, such as Web sites and mobile apps, has grown during the first half of …
• 24 June

  Blocked in Its Bid for Plaid, Visa Agrees to Acquire European Open-Banking Player Tink

  

  In a deal that underscores the crucial importance of open banking in payments, Visa Inc. early Thursday said it has agreed to pay $2.15 billion to buy Tink AB, a 9-year-old, Stockholm-based company whose network connects to 3,400 financial institutions throughout Europe. The agreement comes five months after Visa abandoned …
• 17 June

  Sightline Payments Gets Set to Support Cashless Wagering for a New Las Vegas Resort

  

  A new resort will open in Las Vegas next week, and with it will come cashless wagering, the ability to place bets via a mobile phone. Resorts World Las Vegas says it will be the first casino in the city to offer cashless betting at both slot machines and table …