Transaction Processing

Amazon.com Inc.’s payments ambitions continue to manifest themselves with Monday’s announcement that Paymentus Corp. will enable bill payment and management via Amazon’s voice-controlled Alexa devices. Charlotte, N.C.-based Paymentus said billers on the Paymentus Instant Payment Network will be able to offer consumers a way to link their utility accounts to …

Owners of small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) generally have a negative outlook on the payments industry, and for good reason. The merchant-services world, in particular, has an ugly track record, including lackluster customer support, not to mention misleading sales practices that lead to costly processing rates, hidden fees, and burdensome …

Days after Nxgen and Payscape announced they were merging with a third payments provider, BluePay Canada, the new entity said it has agreed to combine with a fourth company, Payroc LLC, and adopt the Payroc name. James Oberman, Payroc’s chief executive, will serve as CEO of the merged entity.Discover Financial Services said it now …

This year’s mega-mergers in the transaction-processing business are now starting to generate some smaller spin-off deals. On Friday, two payments providers, Nxgen International and Payscape, said they have acquired a third, BluePay Canada. Terms of the deal were not announced, and an overarching name for the tripartite company has not …

The four global U.S.-based payment card networks unveiled their joint e-commerce buy button this week, which means merchants, merchant acquirers, and processors can look forward to—or dread—implementing it. Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Alfred F. Kelly Jr. predicted Thursday they shouldn’t have too many problems. The button is based …

While fintechs and other nonbank payments providers continue to carve out more market share for themselves, banks could face losing up to $88 billion in payments revenue to them. That’s the assessment from Accenture, the consulting firm that on Wednesday released its latest report, “5 Big Bets in Retail Payments …

Kabbage Inc. launched Kabbage Payments, a payments service for small businesses. Kabbage provides merchant lending and uses a payment-facilitator model for the Kabbage Payments subsidiary.American Express Co. revamped its 50-year-old Green Card with a new suite of benefits and rewards. Now called Green from Amex, the card’s fee is $150, up from …

The number of Apple Pay users has surpassed that of the Starbucks mobile-payments service, says eMarketer Inc., marking the first time a general-purpose mobile app has become more popular than the coffee retailer’s. New York City-based eMarketer counted 30.3 million U.S. Apple Pay users, while Starbucks had 25.2 million users. …

Discover Financial Services reported its Payment Services unit, which includes activity on the Pulse electronic funds transfer network, on Diners Club cards, and with network partners, recorded $62.6 billion in volume in the third quarter, up 7% year-over-year. Volume on Pulse alone increased 5% to $47.5 billion. With Discover network proprietary …

Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Early Warning said Zelle’s volume totaled $49 billion, up 58% from 2018’s third quarter. Over the same time, transactions increased 73% to 196 million. Dollar volume on the Zelle peer-to-peer payments service increased more than 50% year-over-year in the third quarter while the transaction count jumped even more, …