Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

September, 2021

• 2 September

  Walgreens Moves into Banking With Its Scarlet Bank Account And Debit Card Debut

  

  Giant pharmacy chain Walgreen Co. is getting into the banking and debit card business with the launch of Scarlet. Announced Thursday, Scarlet is a Mastercard-branded debit card issued by MetaBank. InComm Payments provides the system for the account. Scarlet works like most bank accounts and is designed to help accountholders …
• 2 September

  Subscription Fees Are up 15% and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 9/2/21

  

  U.S. consumers are spending $273 per month on subscription services on average, up 15% from the average in 2018, yet they estimate they are spending less, according to a poll from consulting firm West Monroe.Payments provider Nuvei Corp. completed its $250-million cash acquisition of SimplexCC Ltd., a cryptocurrency gateway that links exchanges, brokers, wallets, …
• 1 September

  Adoption of The Financial Data Exchange’s API Surges To New Heights

  

  The Financial Data Exchange (FDX), a non-profit standards body for providers of open-banking and open-finance applications, announced on Wednesday that the number of consumer accounts using its application programming interface has swelled to 22 million, up from 16 million in April, an increase of more than one million accounts per …
• 1 September

  Eye on ACH: Same-Day Transactions Soar; Certegy’s Mobile Remote Capture for Vendors

  Same-day transaction processing on the automated clearing house network will turn five years old this month, and while that may provide one reason for participants to celebrate, network governor Nacha issued another one Wednesday morning: both same-day transactions and same-day dollar volume are soaring. Transactions totaled 148.7 million in the …
• 1 September

  Mercari Picks Zip’s BNPL Option and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 9/1/21

  

  Mercari, an online marketplace for second-hand goods, said consumers can use buy now, pay later services from Zip Co., formerly Quadpay, on its Web site.Buy now, pay later specialist Uplift Inc. said consumers who book with Sixthman, a music-festival organizer on cruise ships, can pay for their tickets in monthly installments. Sixthman is …

August, 2021

• 31 August

  Astra Partners With Plaid to Make It Easier for Developers to Add Automated Transfers

  

  As part of its strategy to remove friction from automated bank transfers, Astra Inc., a provider of bank-to-bank transfer technology, is partnering with open-banking platform provider Plaid Inc. The partnership will make it easier for software developers to embed automated bank transfers into their applications by enabling them to use …
• 31 August

  The Delta Variant’s Shadow Hangs Over a Promising Recovery by the Nation’s Restaurant Industry

  

  The emergence earlier this year of a virulent new coronavirus variant “threatens to reverse the gains made in the first six months of the year” by the U.S. restaurant industry, according to data released Tuesday by the National Restaurant Association. The news comes as eateries have adopted contactless forms of …
• 31 August

  Apple, Google Face Big App Store Change and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 8/31/21

  

  Apple Inc.’s App Store and the Google Play store will have to open their payments services to competing providers for in-app purchases in South Korea if a recently passed bill becomes law, reported The Wall Street Journal, which also said the president’s party endorsed the legislation. Apple, in particular, has been the …
• 30 August

  Convenience Chain Wawa Settles a Class Action Suit Stemming from a Malware Attack

  

  The convenience-store chain Wawa Inc. announced Monday it settled a class-action lawsuit stemming from a data breach in 2019 that was related to malware discovered on its payment-processing servers. The settlement, which is subject to court approval, resolves all customer claims related to the data breach. The malware affected customer payment card information …
• 30 August

  BNPL Lands a Whale As Affirm Adds Amazon for Installment Payments

  

  Buy now, pay later specialist Affirm Inc. late Friday announced it had clinched the e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. as a client, securing a source of enormous volume and sending its stock soaring Monday morning. The news follows the enablement in May of Affirm’s service for hundreds of thousands of U.S. merchants …