TSG has published a selection of key insights discovered after analyzing 325+ industry players in the newest Directory of U.S. Merchant Acquirers, sponsored by FIS.
The Strawhecker Group (TSG), the largest analytics and consulting firm focused on payments acceptance, is pleased to announce several well-deserved promotions.
“Each person has earned their new title through their continued effort and dedication to the firm as well as their teammates,” said Mike Strawhecker, President of TSG. “We are excited to elevate these individuals to their new roles as our company continues to grow.”
PayPal now allows payment for goods and services with cryptocurrency, with a twist: Merchants receive cold, hard, American cash, less PayPal’s standard merchant fee. Starting with U.S. customers and merchants, the global payment-processing firm’s new “Checkout with Crypto” provides the most mainstream conduit to convert value in bitcoins and three other digital currencies into government-backed dollars to complete purchases. “What I love about this for the consumer is that their crypto holdings are just like any other funding instrument inside the PayPal wallet, whether it be your credit card, your debit card, your balance that you may have...You just select whatever funding source you want,” says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman.
Visa and Mastercard are facing fresh opposition from U.S. retailers in a long-running legal fight over the fees merchants pay each time consumers swipe their credit or debit card at checkout. The Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National Retail Federation want to join a federal lawsuit filed in 2005 that led Visa, Mastercard and some big banks to agree to pay $5.54 billion to settle the case. While the suit is still in the midst of appeals, the industry’s two largest trade groups said the class of merchants the existing plaintiffs are seeking to certify is too broad and would prevent retailers who don’t like the settlement terms from opting out and taking their own legal action.
Bank of America announced that it has acquired Axia Technologies, Inc. (“AxiaMed”), an industry-leading health care payment and technology company focused on facilitating secure patient payments. The acquisition will deepen and expand Bank of America’s payment offerings for healthcare clients and will further accelerate the bank’s ability to serve this key vertical. It is part of a broader initiative to integrate merchant services onto its proprietary platform following the dissolution of its merchant services joint venture last year. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. “We are adding a talented team that brings great domain expertise and technology, and we’re excited to have them join Bank of America,” said Mark Monaco, head of enterprise payments at Bank of America.
In the headiness of the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) boom, FinTechs are playing aggressively. And while it’s easy to focus on the sheer volume of listings and announcements of new SPAC formations and mergers, it’s easy to overlook just what investors may be paying for when they buy into a SPAC merger. Paysafe began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday (March 31) after having merged with the blank-check firm known as Foley Trasimene Acquisition II Corp.
Visa said on Monday it will allow the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network, the latest sign of growing acceptance of digital currencies by the mainstream financial industry. Visa has launched the pilot program with payment and crypto platform Crypto.com and plans to offer the option to more partners later this year, it said. The USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin cryptocurrency whose value is pegged directly to the U.S. dollar.
OLB Group is the latest processor to support Quick Response codes as merchants look for ways to adopt contactless-payment options in the wake of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. OLB will support dynamic QR codes, which are generated in real time for each transaction, on its cloud-based OmniSoft business-management platform and its SecurePay gateway. One advantage of dynamic QR codes versus static codes is that they can track such data as the number of scans, the location where the code was scanned, and the time of the scan.
Card network behemoth Mastercard is locking arms with two fintech partners on new services in the race to roll digital features that will keep tech rival upstarts at bay. The Purchase, New York-based Mastercard said in a press release that it’s partnering with the software company Emburse, to provide bank issuers of its cards the chance to offer their corporate card users a better way to manage employee expense reports. They plan to launch the program with a first customer later this year.
Coinbase Global, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, will make its trading debut through a direct listing on the Nasdaq on April 14, according to a report. The direct listing had been pushed back from March, sources told Bloomberg. As usual, a reference price will be made available the night before the shares are to begin trading. While April 14 is the target date, the timing and other details for the listing could change. In an amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, Coinbase said that it planned to sell 114.9 million shares in its direct listing.
Australian BNPL giant Afterpay is stepping up its assault on in-store payments through the introduction of a contactless virtual card offering. To make an in-store purchase, customers hit the card icon in the Afterpay app, which activates the card, which can be used to pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay. As with online Afterpay purchases, customers can pay in four instalments, without any fees or interest. Afterpay rolled out a barcode-based in-store offering back in 2016 and this now accounts for 22% of its business in Australia and New Zealand.
WhatsApp will soon be able to relaunch its payment service in Brazil. According to Reuters, the country's central bank has approved peer-to-peer payments for the Facebook—owned messaging service, allowing users to send money to each other with cards issued by Visa and Mastercard. WhatsApp originally rolled out the payments feature in its second largest market back in June 2020, but Brazil's central bank quickly ordered the service to suspend it so it can look into whether it meets all the rules on "competition, efficiency and data privacy."
The ETA includes some 500 corporate and organization members, from credit card companies such as Visa and Mastercard, to big technology companies like Amazon and Paypal, to fintech upstarts such as Stripe and Marqeta. Those members process about $21 trillion in transactions annually through various payments systems. Like other trade groups, it advocates on behalf of the industry on the federal and state levels, provides networking opportunities for members, and keeps its members apprised of industry trends, information and practices.
MobiKwik said on Tuesday it was investigating claims of data breach after a website claimed to have exposed private information of nearly 100 million users of the Indian mobile payments startup. Over the weekend, a site on the dark web claimed it had 8.2 terabytes of MobiKwik user data. The data included phone numbers, email addresses, scrambled passwords, transactions logs and partial payment card numbers.
Mastercard and four other companies broke UK law by engaging in cartel behavior in the pre-paid card market, according to the country's Payment Systems Regulator (PSR). Mastercard, allpay, APS, PFS and Sulion engaged in anti-competitive behavior by agreeing not to compete or poach each other’s clients when it came to pre-paid cards that are used by local authorities to distribute welfare payments to vulnerable members of society, such as the homeless, victims of domestic violence and asylum seekers, says the PSR in its provisional findings.
Job growth boomed in March at the fastest pace since last summer, as stronger economic growth and an aggressive vaccination effort contributed to a surge in hospitality and construction jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 916,000 for the month while the unemployment rate fell to 6%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an increase of 675,000 and an unemployment rate of 6%. The total was the highest since the 1.58 million added in August 2020.
The S&P 500 closed above 4,000 for the first time on Thursday, ending the first day of the new quarter at 4,019 after President Joe Biden's massive infrastructure plan boosted confidence in the nation's broader economic outlook. The index of the world's largest publicly traded companies last crossed a 1,000-point threshold just 21 months ago, when it hit 3,000 in July 2019. Before that, it took five years to go from 2,000 to 3,000.
U.S. manufacturing expanded in March at the fastest pace since 1983, catapulted by the firmest orders and production readings in 17 years. The data add to evidence of an economy poised to accelerate. A gauge of factory activity jumped to 64.7 from 60.8 a month earlier, according to Institute for Supply Management data released Thursday. Index levels above 50 indicate expansion and the March figure topped all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Small businesses continue to move their operations online and look to access digital tools to future-proof their business in response to the pandemic. According to a Mastercard survey, 76% of small businesses in North America suggest the pandemic prompted them to make their business more digital, yet 64% say they are challenged to transform digitally1. To help small businesses maximize their digital presence, Mastercard is announcing the addition of new offerings with Microsoft, QuickBooks and Zoho to its suite of U.S. small business benefits.
Visa announced the expansion of Visa Direct, a real-time1 push payments platform, with the introduction of Visa Direct Payouts. The new solution allows Visa’s clients and partners around the world to use a single point of connection to push payments to eligible cards for domestic payouts, and eligible cards and/or accounts for cross-border payments. “As digital commerce accelerates, Visa is innovating to give financial institutions, governments, individuals and businesses new ways to pay and get paid beyond the card,” said Bill Sheley, SVP, Global Head, Visa Direct, Visa.
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced that Citizens Bank & Trust, headquartered in Alabama, will enhance its digital banking experience and drive commercial and retail growth with technology from Fiserv. Citizens Bank & Trust has over $700 million in assets, and was growing beyond the capabilities of its previous core processing system. The community bank selected the DNA® core processing platform from Fiserv, and will use its real time processing capabilities, robust digital ecosystem and ability to easily integrate third party applications to drive a new phase of growth.
Quisitive Technology Solutions Inc. a premier Microsoft Solutions Provider, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a stock purchase agreement dated March 29, 2021 (the “Agreement”) to acquire BankCard USA Merchant Services, Inc. (“BankCard”) for US$100 million in cash and the issuance of 50,000,000 common shares in the capital of Quisitive (the “Transaction”). BankCard, an arm’s length party to Quisitive, is an established all-in-one merchant payment services provider with over US$3.0 billion of payment volume which increased 31% in 2020.
Payroc WorldAccess, LLC (“Payroc”), a leading merchant acquirer and global payment processing organization, announced the promotion of Adam Oberman from Chief Revenue Officer to President. “Adam’s leadership, work ethic and character are emblematic of Payroc’s core values,” said Payroc CEO, Jim Oberman. “He leads by example, listens first, and believes our people are essential to the success and future of our business. These qualities, plus his knowledge of every aspect of the business makes this role as President a perfect fit for Adam.”
Nuvei Corporation, the global payment technology partner of thriving brands, announced it has added pay-in and payout support for nearly 40 of the world’s leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, NEO, Ripple and more. Now, eCommerce merchants can join the cryptocurrency revolution, offering innovative payment methods to access more customers around the world, even in previously hard to reach countries.
Forte Payment Systems® , a CSG® company, and CivicPlus announced a strategic partnership to offer a full end-to-end payments solution that delivers a superior citizen engagement digital experience for local governments nationwide. “The ability for local government agencies to provide services online is a core component to meeting the needs of the citizens they serve,” said Ryan Strait, CivicPlus senior product director.
More than 70.3 billion real-time payments transactions were processed globally in 2020, a surge of 41 percent compared to the previous year, as the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated trends away from cash and checks toward greater reliance on real-time and digital payments, a new global report from ACI Worldwide and GlobalData reveals. The second installment of ‘Prime-Time for Real-Time,’ first launched in 2020, analyzes global real-time, account-to-account payment volumes and forecasts across 48 global markets. It projects a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for real-time payments of 23.6 percent from 2020 to 2025.
VizyPay, the leading payment processing company for small businesses, announced the launch of the VizyPOS App for PAX Technology point-of-sales (POS) systems, available now on the PAX App Market. The app offers robust capabilities that allow merchants to manage all sales aspects within their business and addresses major industry pain points, including the lack of data analytics and split tender options for cash discounting.
Mynt, a leading provider of point of sale (POS) technology for retailers and restaurants, is now partnering with Paystri for integrated payments. The partnership gives Mynt’s clients access to an array of payment solutions that can be customized to the unique needs of their businesses. Mynt is a complete POS solution that’s affordable, powerful, and easy to operate. All Mynt hardware is enterprise grade and designed for the rigors of daily use in fast paced environments. In addition, Mynt’s software is easy to use and full of features that help businesses run smoothly.
