Under pressure from changing market conditions and challenges from digital-based competitors, money-transfer giants The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc. both reported disappointing second-quarter results. In addition, Denver-based Western Union said it will chop its workforce by 10% over the coming months as part of a cost-reduction campaign it …
Read More »Square Selling Caviar to DoorDash and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/2/19
Square Inc. agreed to sell its Caviar food-delivery service to DoorDash for $410 million in cash and DoorDash preferred stock. Square acquired Caviar in 2014 for a reported $90 million.Montreal-based payment firm Nuvei Technologies completed its acquisition of U.S.-based SafeCharge International Group Ltd. for $889 million; the deal brings to Nuvei technology assets and merchant …
Read More »Fueled by Cash App, Square’s Consumer Business Takes a Star Turn
As Square Inc. enters its 11th year in business, observers have noted how it is depending increasingly on sales to larger sellers. But its financial results for the second quarter, released Thursday, indicate how the San Francisco-based company is also depending more and more on its rapidly growing consumer business, …
Read More »Warning About Online Skimming and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/1/19
The PCI Security Standards Council and Retail & Hospitality ISAC issued a joint bulletin about a growing threat to e-commerce Web sites that the cybersecurity organizations say requires “urgent awareness and attention.” The threat, sometimes dubbed Magecart, involves sites infected with difficult-to-detect malware that skims payment card information during a transaction without …
Read More »Financial-Services Firms Find Favor Among Phishers
A new report about online security finds that 50% of phishing domains that researchers tracked mimicked the Web sites of financial-services companies. The findings come from the “State of the Internet/Security” report released Wednesday by Cambridge, Mass.-based Web-services provider Akamai Technologies. Forever a favorite of criminals, banks and other financial …
Read More »FIS-Worldpay Deal Closes and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 7/31/19
Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said it has closed on its $43-billion cash-and-stock acquisition of processor Worldpay Inc. The deal was announced in March. Wednesday’s announcement follows approval of the merger by Worldpay shareholders last week and by the Federal Trade Commission in April.Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook reported the Apple Pay mobile-payments service is now completing nearly …
Read More »Visa and Kroger Settle Debit-Routing Lawsuit, but Partial Credit Card Boycott Continues
The Kroger Co. and Visa Inc. have settled a 2016 federal lawsuit in which Kroger alleged Visa interfered with its transaction-routing plans for EMV debit cards, Digital Transactions News has learned. In a separate dispute, however, the leading stand-alone supermarket chain is still boycotting Visa credit cards in some of …
Read More »It’s Hard to Beat Amazon, And That’s Putting Pressure on the Providers That Serve Small Sellers
Big merchants like Amazon.com Inc. are celebrated for virtually friction-free transaction flows, and now that’s putting pressure on the point-of-sale vendors that serve small businesses. That’s because clients want the same kind of experience for their customers, but don’t know how to go about it, a panel of experts said …
Read More »Eye on Acquiring: An End to the BAMS Joint Venture; Global Payments Updates TSYS Merger
The end of Bank of America Merchant Services, a merchant-acquiring joint venture between Bank of America Corp. and First Data Corp., is at hand. Charlotte, N.C.-based BofA said Monday it will pursue an independent merchant-acquiring strategy beginning in June 2020, though First Data, which that same day became part of …
Read More »Mastercard’s Transaction Volume Jumps 18%; Secure Remote Commerce and Contactless Payments Gain
Mastercard Inc. saw strong growth in its core business in the second quarter, a time when the network continued its push for contactless cards and development of the new Secure Remote Commerce system for online payments. Mastercard said it switched 21.4 billion transactions globally in the three months ending June …
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