News

April, 2017

• 5 April

  Bill Would Fund Trump’s Border Wall With a 2% Tax on Remittances to 42 Jurisdictions

  

  While President Donald J. Trump has promised to build a wall along the southern U.S. border to stop illegal immigrants and have Mexico pay for it, an Alabama Congressman’s bill would provide financial support from people in the U.S. sending funds to Mexico and 41 other countries or territories. And …
• 4 April

  In a Business That ‘Requires Scale,’ Avangate Swallows 2Checkout And Eyes More Deals

  

  For a company looking to grow via acquisitions, the increasing complexity of the payments business can be an advantage. That’s what Atlanta-based Avangate Inc. is banking on. On Friday, the online processor for digital goods clinched a deal to acquire 18-year-old e-commerce gateway 2Checkout.com Inc., and its appetite is hardly …
• 4 April

  Deluxe Completes RDM Purchase and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • In a bid to reach cash-only customers, Amazon.com Inc. launched Amazon Cash, a service that gives users a barcode they can store in their smart phone or print and bring to a participating store to add cash to their Amazon balance. Participating stores include CVS, Speedway, Kum & Go, and …
• 4 April

  Criminals Hit More Firms in 2016 as Check, ACH Debit, and Email Fraud Attempts Rose

  

  Nearly three-fourths of corporate treasury and finance executives say their organizations were hit by actual or attempted payment fraud in 2016, with check, automated clearing house debit, and email fraud attempts all rising, according to the Association for Financial Professionals’ ninth annual payments fraud survey. Some 74% of respondents said …
• 3 April

  Despite Hundreds of Players, Just a Few Processors Dominate the Acquiring Industry

  Consulting firm The Strawhecker Group is out with its 2016 rankings of U.S. merchant acquirers, and they show that 240 acquirers and independent sales organizations processed more than $5 trillion in payment volume. The 10 biggest acquirers accounted for 80% of that volume. Topping the list is JPMorgan Chase & …
• 3 April

  Investor Interest in Bitcoin And Blockchain Cools, Signaling Possible ‘Caution’

  

  The price of Bitcoin may have gotten hot in recent months, but investor interest in Bitcoin and blockchain startups could be cooling off. The population of unique investors pouring money into companies dealing in the cryptocurrency and its underlying infrastructure fell 27% last year to 217, according to the latest …
• 3 April

  TSYS’s Netspend Unit To Pay $53 Million As Part of FTC Settlement

  

  Netspend, the prepaid card unit of processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), will pay $53 million as part of a settlement it reached with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations concerning how it handled some marketing materials. The settlement, announced Friday, calls for Netspend to set aside $40 million to …
• 3 April

  National Interest Rears in Ant’s MoneyGram Bid and other Digital Transactions News briefs

  • China-based Ant Financial Services Group’s $880 million bid for wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. is generating increasing opposition in Congress on national-security grounds, according to press reports from Washington. U.S.-based Euronet Worldwide Inc. last month submitted an unsolicited $1 billion bid for MoneyGram. • Avangate, a subscription-management and e-commerce platform, announced …
• 3 April

  Co-Op Financial Services Acquires Credit-Union Processor TMG for $100 Million

  

  Co-Op Financial Services, the big credit-union service organization based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., announced Monday that it had acquired Des Moines, Iowa-based payment processor TMG for $100 million. Co-Op had been the minority owner of TMG, until recently known as The Members Group, and bought out the rest of the …
• 1 April

  Now There’s an API for Same-Day ACH Processing

  

  When the nation’s automated clearing house network introduced same-day settlement in September, it was only a matter of time before an application programming interface became available to simplify faster clearing. In March, that day arrived with Dwolla Inc.’s announcement that it was commercializing a same-day ACH API. The code, which …