Mobile Wallets

Grocer The Kroger Co. launched Kroger Pay and the Kroger Rewards debit card. Kroger Pay, available for iOS and Android mobile devices, is a Quick Response code-based mobile-payment service, which also includes digital coupons and personalized offers. Currently, Kroger Pay is available in Columbus, Ohio, with plans for nationwide expansion …

Speed is a key selling point for person-to-person payments, but many P2P users aren’t taking advantage of real-time payment capabilities offered by their providers, according to research firm Aite Group LLC. Answers from 693 consumers who had used a digital P2P account to receive money in the 12 months ending …

Mastercard Inc. introduced a so-called sonic brand identity, including a melody that will play when users deploy Mastercard in physical, digital, or voice commerce. Wells Fargo & Co. said late Thursday that its ATMs were back in service after an outage affected the bank’s ATMs, online and mobile banking services, …

Segpay Corp. debuted its Merchant Services Group, which is tasked with direct merchant-account placement, gateway, and other services for e-commerce merchants. Segpay has operated as a payment facilitator since 2005. A subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee will have a hearing at 2 p.m. Est. Feb. …

PayPal Holdings Inc. says it has lent $50 billion to American consumers since it bought the BillMeLater lending service 11 years ago. The company also advanced its efforts to generate revenues from its Venmo peer-to-peer payment service by making subscription payments to the Tidal music-streaming service available through Venmo. Now …

The concept of push payments is finding favor among payments providers as two companies separately announce new disbursement services. Atlanta-based Repay said its Instant Funding service enables organizations to send funds directly to eligible Visa Inc. debit and prepaid cards via Visa Direct, the network’s real-time debit service. Repay’s lending clients, …

When the technology emerged, mobile ordering was thought to be a natural for the restaurant industry, and now there’s some research showing just how popular these apps have become. It turns out that, from 2013 through 2017, digital orders at restaurants grew at an average annual rate of 23%, and …

Elavon, the Atlanta-based merchant-acquiring subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, says it plans to hire approximately 500 employees globally over the next three years. Elavon currently employs more than 730 people in Atlanta and more than 4,500 worldwide. BlockChyp Inc., a payment software and gateway provider, said it completed Level 3 certification …

Point-of-sale system maker Lightspeed debuted Lightspeed Payments, a service for in-store and e-commerce payments. The service unifies a merchant’s card-present and card-not-present transaction data into one reporting location within the Lightspeed POS software. Regardless of the card type, merchants pay 2.6% plus 10 cents per card-present payment and 2.6% plus …

In reporting its performance for the fourth quarter of 2018 as well as the full year, PayPal Holdings Inc. indicated its dependence on former owner eBay Inc. is down, Venmo monetization is up, and active accounts are surging. Meanwhile, the San Jose, Calif.-based company said it is entering a potentially …