Marketing

U.S. merchants achieved higher performance scores for their gift card programs in 2025, according to Blackhawk Network’s eighth annual review of the programs. Staples Inc. led all merchants with a score of 104%, followed by Amazon.com with a score of 101% and Best Buy Co. Inc. at 99%. Cosmetics retailer …

Fintech Branch launched a payroll debit card tied to a digital bank account instead of a prepaid card, as many payroll cards are set up. Schwarzwald Capital said it has invested an undisclosed amount in Vesta Corp., a transaction-guarantee platform for card-not-present payments. Bitcoin transaction-verification platform Branta said it has worked with Amboss, a provider of …

PayPal Holdings Inc. said will release a second wave of advertisements with actor Will Ferrell to promote its checkout services, PayPal Pay Later, its buy now, pay later service, and a sweepstakes that will cover, for 1,000 winners for 100 days, up to $100 of their transactions made with PayPal. PayPal launched the …

Canadian payments provider Helcim Inc. is bringing next-business-day funding of digital payment receipts to small and medium businesses in the United States and Canada free of charge. The service, called Faster Deposits, will significantly speed up merchant access to digital payment receipts by days, the processor says. Most deposits take …

Online Asian grocer Weee! is adding SNAP/EBT acceptance to its site via a partnership with Forage Technology Corp. Inc. while financial services entity Synchrony Financial marks an integration with Adobe Commerce to offer its financial products on merchant Web sites. Fremont, Calif.-based Weee! says its agreement with Forage enables its …

Buy now, pay later provider Sezzle Inc. announced early Monday that users of its MoneyIQ financial-education program are completing an average of 11 modules and have collectively earned more than 5 million experience-rewards points. MoneyIQ, which Sezzle launched with Zogo in January, is a financial-education tool within the Sezzle mobile …

With a renewed emphasis on retail merchants, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. is launching a tool to help retailers data and inventory forecasting. In related news, point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico says its SoftPOS software development kit achieved a PCI Security Standards Council certification. Montreal-based Lightspeed announced the its four-part plan to boost …

The Department of Justice approved Capital One Financial Corp.’s $35-billion proposal to acquire Discover Financial Services, noting it does not see strong enough competition concerns to scrub the deal, which was first proposed by the two parties in February last year. PointsKash Inc. said it has concluded an agreement with Discover Network to issue …

What may be the first merchant-branded, automated clearing house-based pay-by-bank service has launched. Pay with Spire Inc., a Dallas-based payments provider, says its new Pay with Spire platform enables merchants to accept pay-by-bank transactions with no integration and at lower acceptance costs than credit or debit cards. Spire says the …

With payment terminals as a foundation, PAX Technology Inc. is extending its acquiring support into payments management with its new Evolve payment application.  Meanwhile, Verifone Systems Inc. has lined up $235 million in investment in its latest funding exercise. PAX, which has a U.S. office in Jacksonville, Fla., says Evolve …