Marketing

The U.S. Postal Service could generate as much as $1.1 billion in additional annual revenue after five years if it expanded its existing payment services. That’s according to a report from the USPS Office of Inspector General. But a hotly competitive market could dampen those prospects, experts say. Struggling with …

Merchants, whether they sell online or in stores, consistently have one bugaboo about their payment-processing service: They want it to be cheaper. Online retailers, in particular, which pay higher card-not-present interchange rates, can use some simple practices to make a dent in these costs, as outlined this week in a …

  Seemingly shunned by traditional lenders during the Great Recession a few years ago, small merchants turned to alternative financing to buy inventory and equipment. It’s a trend that shows few signs of dissipating. PayPal Inc. this week said it had lent $500 million in the first 18 months of …

Visa Inc.’s branding and marketing strengths were what won Costco Wholesale Corp. over from American Express Co. in a set of exclusive acceptance and cobrand agreements announced early in March, according to Visa chief executive Charles W. Scharf, who spoke Thursday afternoon during a conference call to discuss Visa’s results …

MasterCard Inc. announced Monday it is spending $600 million to buy Applied Predictive Technologies Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based company that provides analytics services to retailers, financial institutions, and other companies. The deal, expected to close in the second quarter, provides MasterCard with yet another service for merchants. “Merchants, like financial …

By Jim Daly Grizzled veterans of the payments industry may not have warm and fuzzy feelings for card networks, but the view can be different from consumers’ eyes. In its 27th annual study of brands, a newly released Harris Poll EquiTrend report ranked Visa Inc. as the No. 1 payment …

Facing increasing competition from digital money-transfer upstarts, wire-service giant Western Union Co. is making alliances to add value to its traditional money-movement product. This week, it announced a deal with Skype, the video-calling service, which allows Skype users to top up their accounts by handing over cash at Western Union …

  Card-linked offers appear to be gaining consumer favor, according to results of a survey from the CardLinx Association, a Burlingame, Calif.-based trade group. Over the past 12 months, consumer use of card-linked offers increased 92%, the association said. It surveyed more than 50 companies. Other survey results show 95% …

When the Plenti loyalty program—announced Wednesday by American Express Co.—debuts this spring, it will mark the first time a U.S. consumer-rewards program on a national scale enabled points to be earned and used across multiple merchants. The inaugural group of merchants includes AT&T, ExxonMobil Corp., Macy’s Inc., Nationwide Mutual Insurance …

By John Stewart While big-time companies like Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Samsung Electronics Co. prepare to battle it out for control of mobile payments, evidence is emerging that consumers may be strongly inclined to reward merchants that accept mobile wallets and punish those that don’t. Some 30% of consumers …