Marketing

Giant pharmacy chain Walgreen Co. is getting into the banking and debit card business with the launch of Scarlet. Announced Thursday, Scarlet is a Mastercard-branded debit card issued by MetaBank. InComm Payments provides the system for the account. Scarlet works like most bank accounts and is designed to help accountholders …

U.S. consumers are spending $273 per month on subscription services on average, up 15% from the average in 2018, yet they estimate they are spending less, according to a poll from consulting firm West Monroe.Payments provider Nuvei Corp. completed its $250-million cash acquisition of SimplexCC Ltd., a cryptocurrency gateway that links exchanges, brokers, wallets, …

Mercari, an online marketplace for second-hand goods, said consumers can use buy now, pay later services from Zip Co., formerly Quadpay, on its Web site.Buy now, pay later specialist Uplift Inc. said consumers who book with Sixthman, a music-festival organizer on cruise ships, can pay for their tickets in monthly installments. Sixthman is …

As part of its strategy to remove friction from automated bank transfers, Astra Inc., a provider of bank-to-bank transfer technology, is partnering with open-banking platform provider Plaid Inc. The partnership will make it easier for software developers to embed automated bank transfers into their applications by enabling them to use …

Apple Inc.’s App Store and the Google Play store will have to open their payments services to competing providers for in-app purchases in South Korea if a recently passed bill becomes law, reported The Wall Street Journal, which also said the president’s party endorsed the legislation. Apple, in particular, has been the …

Buy now, pay later specialist Affirm Inc. late Friday announced it had clinched the e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. as a client, securing a source of enormous volume and sending its stock soaring Monday morning. The news follows the enablement in May of Affirm’s service for hundreds of thousands of U.S. merchants …

Visa Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said they will donate a dime to New York Cares through the month of September, up to a limit of $250,000, for each tap riders perform with a Chase Visa contactless card on subways or buses operated by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.VPay, …

Stop & Shop, a New England grocer with more than 400 stores, said it is enabling online orders for pickup and delivery for customers using electronic benefits transfer payment services in four states. The Quincy, Mass.-based grocer, which is owned by Ahold Delhaize USA Co., said consumers using SNAP (Supplemental …

BBQ Holdings Inc., owner of Famous Dave’s, Village Inn, and Granite City Food & Brewery, selected Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. to provide online and in-store gift card products.Integrated-payments provider EngageSmart LLC announced it has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of its common stock.Klara, …

While consumers’ use of digital channels to pay bills has risen during the Covid-19 pandemic, one area of bill payment that has lagged in the transition to digital payments is billers that accept cash payments, such as utilities. On Thursday, payment-technology provider InComm Payments and bill-payment platform doxo Inc. announced they …