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Paze, the digital wallet from Early Warning Services LLC, says it is working with Payfinia, a unit of banking-services provider Tyfone Inc., to expand its reach.
Payfinia, formed by Tyfone in 2024 to provide real-time payments technology, has helped line up Star One Credit Union, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based financial institution, to provide Paze access to Star One’s 132,000 members.
Announced in 2023 and made available in 2024, Paze is a digital wallet that consumers opt in to. With issuer participation, Paze can automatically load a consumer’s credit or debit card information once they enroll, which can speed up the online-checkout process at participating merchants. Paze also contains the consumer’s billing and shipping addresses. Paze eliminates the need to share the actual card number with merchants, which can help prevent fraud should the data be breached.
The integration with Payfinia will mean credit unions and community banks will have an easier path to adopt Paze, says Eric Hoffman, chief partnerships officer at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Early Warning. Payfinia’s position with its clients and its technology will help extend the reach of Paze, he says.
“Our vision is to transform the online checkout experience, making it as easy and seamless as possible for all consumers. Partnering with Payfinia edges us closer to our vision of having all U.S. banks and credit unions Paze enabled so that Paze is an option for all consumers when shopping online,” Hoffman says in an email to Digital Transactions News.
Expanding Paze’s availability has been an important objective at Early Warning. Paze launched with as many as 150 million credit and debit cards from seven large banks in 2024, with Bank of America Corp. among them.
Early Warning has been steadily broadening the availability of Paze with the 2023 integration with Endava plc, a software development firm and earlier this year processor Fiserv Inc., which said it would make Paze available to its financial institutions. Fiserv also will support Paze across its e-commerce platforms. Worldpay also says it is supporting Paze.
Star One cardholders will enroll in Paze the same as others have with other banks, Hoffman says. Consumers can activate a Paze wallet through their financial institution, which is the preferred way, he says, or during the merchant-checkout process. Both methods require authentication, and enrollees will be asked for additional information to ensure their identities.
Building consumer awareness also is important, Hoffman says. “It’s not about just launching a brand—it’s about launching a change in behavior,” he says. “Paze is solving a long-standing problem—manual card entry. We’ve made strong progress, and partnerships like Payfinia and the recently announced partnerships with Worldpay (Worldpay is a reseller to merchants) and Fiserv (Fiserv is both a reseller to merchants and will be enrolling their financial institutions to participate in Paze, similar to Payfinia) help to accelerate the next chapter. Looking ahead, our biggest opportunity is driving consumer adoption & habituation—getting consumers to choose Paze the first time and every time thereafter when they check out online.”
