Square gets ready to move into local commerce, challenging Yelp and Foursquare
Could Square be moving beyond payments and into local commerce? There are a lot of reasons why it would be a smart move for the young payments company. Read more »
Braintree’s recent move overseas helps double its payments volume to $8B
photo: Flickr user foforix
Six months after launching in Europe and Canada, one quarter of all of Braintree’s e-commerce transactions are initiated on a foreign shore. CEO Bill Ready explains why its international expansion is a key driver of its business. Read more »
Zipmark takes aim at the monthly rent check
photo: Zipmark
Zipmark, a payment system that rides on the existing checking network, is working to retire the traditional rent check. It has signed deals with rental payment portals and property management software companies that will enable tenants to pay with an electronic check. Read more »
PayPal offers price matching, free return shipping for the holidays
photo: PayPal
PayPal is trying to lure in customers with new holiday promotions that allow shoppers to get pricing matching, free return shipping and free six-month financing. The deals apply to sales online, at eBay sites and in-store. Read more »
PayPal’s reorganization costs: 325 layoffs, $15 million
photo: PayPal
PayPal is letting go of 325 full time employees and 120 contractors as part of its restructuring under new CEO David Marcus. Marcus has been trying to make PayPal a more nimble organization built around mobile. Read more »
Groupon targets restaurants with Breadcrumb iPad payment system
photo: Groupon
Groupon is increasing its bet on payments with the introduction of Breadcrumb, an iPad point of sale system designed for restaurants and hospitality customers. The move pits Groupon against Square Register and shows how Groupon continues to expand beyond daily deals. Read more »
Marqeta recreates Starbucks loyalty card for merchants
photo: Marqeta
Marqeta is trying to give merchants a Starbucks card-like approach to loyalty with a new card-based system that lets people preload cash on to a Marqeta card for a specific merchant, who throws in extra cash as a reward. Read more »
Google rebooting content micropayments initiative under Wallet
Consumers may not buy all kinds of web content, but Google is now courting publishers who want to charge with a rebooted version of its micropayments system. Read more at paidContent »
Braintree adds instant approval to its payment platform
photo: Flickr user foforix
Braintree is enabling developers to start accepting payments in 30 minutes or less. The move helps it compete with PayPal and Stripe and pitch itself as a one-stop payment shop for growing merchants. Read more »
Facebook turns on “frictionless” carrier billing via Bango
photo: Bango
Facebook is turning on new streamlined carrier billing mobile web payments thanks to an integration with Bango. The payments, which can boost conversions up to 77 percent compared to 40 percent for traditional carrer billing payments, are going live in the US, UK and Germany. Read more »
Stripe begins global payment quest with Canada expansion
photo: Stripe
Online payment startup Stripe is expanding to Canada after debuting in the US last year as a simple tool for developers who want to take payments. The expansion is the first step in a plan to go global and enable payments anywhere on the Internet. Read more »
For Kore Telematics money and medicine are key to M2M growth
Kore Telematics, which provides cellular connectivity for business who want to span different countries and carriers, is seeing its business grow along with the number of machine to machine connections — especially in the medical device and mobile payments sector. The internet of things is coming. Read more »
WePay makes taking payments copy-and-paste simple
photo: WePay
Accepting payments online just got easier with WePay, which is offering simple payment buttons that can be installed on a website with online of code. That gives individuals and small merchants an easy way to get a business up and running online. Read more »
PayPal taps Discover to bring in-store payments to 7M locations
PayPal is partnering with Discover to greatly expand the number of merchant locations that will be able to handle its in-store payments. Starting in April, seven million locations in the U.S. will be able to handle PayPal payments. Read more »
iZettle goes to Android, lays out a challenge to Square and its rivals
Swedish payments startup iZettle is the leading European rival to Jack Dorsey’s Square. And now that the Scandinavian company is adding Android support to its arsenal, the potential for conflict between the two companies just got a lot bigger. Read more »
Braintree expands mobile payment ambitions; acquires Venmo
Braintree, a payment processing company that serves Rovio, Uber, Fab.com and Airbnb, is paying $26.2 million to buy mobile payment startup Venmo. The deal will allow Braintree to expand on mobile payments, the fastest growing part of its business. Read more »
Dunkin Donuts gets into the mobile payment game
Dunkin Donuts’ first mobile app is debuting Thursday and it’s offering a way for people to pay via their iPhone or Android device. It works similar to one used by Starbucks, which has had a lot of success since it launched mobile payments. Read more »
Rocket apes Stripe and takes its clone factory to new countries
Never ones to rest on their laurels, the Samwer brothers have launched their copy of hot payments service Stripe, while also partnering up with the cellular carrier Millicom for a fresh push into emerging markets Read more »
Mobile payment committee holds promise for more cooperation
Some of the biggest players in the mobile payment space including the four U.S. mobile carriers, Google, Isis, VeriFone and Intuit are joining a new mobile payment committee within the Electronic Transactions Association. It’s still too early to say what this cooperation will yield. Read more »
Why Starbucks is betting on Square
Starbucks has seen the power of mobile payments first hand but isn’t prepared to expand its own payment efforts. But it is making a big $25 million bet on Square to be a leader in this fast growing space. Read more »
GoPago repositions itself as a free Square rival
The line-up of Square rivals just got a bit longer today with the debut of GoPago Live, a mobile payment service for small businesses. GoPago’s twist is that its offering software and a tablet with 4G wireless, a receipt printer and cash drawer, all for free. Read more »
Google-backed payment startup Corduro aims for enterprise
While Google-backed Corduro may have looked like a Square competitor at first, it’s shooting for bigger clients. It signed up a hospital and a university earlier this year and plans to keep going after big enterprise customers while still making its services available to merchants. Read more »
Cash register maker NCR joins the pursuit of Square
Square’s list of big name competitors is officially getting another billion dollar company. NCR Corp., the Duluth, GA maker of cash registers and ATM machines, is now launching NCR Silver, a cloud-based point of sale product aimed at small businesses. Read more »
The mobile operator’s dilemma (and opportunity): The fourth curve
Mobile operator profits have more than doubled in the last 10 years. But operators can’t rest on their laurels. As voice, texting, and data revenues fall over time, operators must step up to take up the role of becoming an over the top provider. Read more »
‘PayPal for business’ Traxpay gets $4m to take on US
With the online B2B payments market worth a whopping $250bn or so, Traxpay and its backers are hoping their real-time, back-office-friendly platform will give them a significant slice of the pie Read more »
iZettle banks $31m to become the global Square
Since coming out of beta last year, Swedish payments service iZettle has been very careful about how it has grown. The company — which, like Square, lets people take card payments through their iPhone — first launched in its home market, then the rest of the […] Read more »
LevelUp adds $12M to build out payment service
LevelUp, the local loyalty and payment app, is getting $12 million to expand the service nationwide. The service, which is an offshoot of location start-up SCVNGR, now has 200,000 users, who are spending $2 million a month with the app. Read more »
Intuit targets Square by connecting GoPayment to QuickBooks POS
Intuit is taking a key step in its competition with Square and other payment rivals by integrating QuickBooks Point of Sale product with its GoPayment mobile payment product. That means that customers will have an easy way to combine a traditional POS experience with mobile payments. Read more »
Keith Rabois: Why Square’s handcrafted approach to payments can win
Square, the breakout mobile payment hit, faces more competition from deep-pocketed competitors. But the company is content to craft its own commerce tools without opening up an API or striking big partnerships. Square’s COO Keith Rabois explains how it will win by going solo. Read more »
GoCardless opens up for dead simple, low-cost payments
Disruptive UK payments startup GoCardless is aiming for the big time with a new, user-friendly service called PayLinks that allows anybody to pay or collect money online in seconds — all without paying hefty transaction fees. But can they gain users’ trust? Read more »
PayPal rolls out barcode payments in the UK
EBay’s CEO John Donahoe has called 2012 a year of testing for PayPal’s in-store payments as it gears up for a big push next year. The company is making good on that with the launch of its first barcode-based payments in the UK at four retailers. Read more »
Flattr: we’re victims of an ‘app dictatorship’
The founders of micro-payment service Flattr have said they are worried that their business could be seriously damaged after Apple rejected a podcasting app that integrated with the system. Read more »
PayPal quietly starts marketing in-store payments to consumers
PayPal has made headlines about the business arrangements it’s secured for its in-store payment system. But the consumer strategy will be just as important. PayPal told me the marketing campaign for consumers began in the last week and will ramp up as PayPal adds more retailers. Read more »
PayPal rallies 15 retail partners for in-store payment drive
PayPal unveiled 15 national retail partners that will support its in-store payment system, which is set to compete against the likes of credit cards and other emerging payment tools. It also launched a new mid-market payment tool for medium-sized businesses with multiple locations. Read more »
PayPal secures POS makers VeriFone, Equinox for in-store push
PayPal’s drive to become a major player for in-store payments is getting a huge push thanks to new partnerships with VeriFone, the top point-of-sale terminal maker and Equinox Payments, the No. 3 terminal maker. The deals now give PayPal access 40 million terminals worldwide. Read more »
iZettle, Europe’s rival to Square, hits the UK
Swedish payments startup iZettle, which hopes to become the European equivalent of Square, is launching its first pilot in Britain. The move is the company’s largest rollout — and its biggest test — so far. Read more »
PayPal’s key to winning mobile payments: data
PayPal’s years of experience in online payments is one of its biggest assets as it chases mobile and in-store transactions. But the by product of all that experience — mounds of data — could be an even bigger weapon. PayPal’s chief scientist Mok Oh explains the possibilities. Read more »
PayPal forms alliance with Softbank to launch PayPal Here in Japan
PayPal is forming a joint venture with Softbank Corp. to help launch its small business mobile payment product PayPal Here in Japan. The joint venture, called PayPal Japan, will help PayPal target PayPal’s $1.7 trillion dollar retail market, which is made up of mostly small businesses. Read more »
PayPal targets small businesses with all-in-one tool PayPal Payments
PayPal is organizing its payments products into one service for small businesses called PayPal Payments that is meant to provide an array of tools for online, in-person and mobile payments. It takes what PayPal has done online and marries it with its mobile and in-store tools. Read more »
Eastern promise: PayPal’s ambitious plans for Russia
PayPal has only taken tiny steps into the increasingly busy Russian market — but now the American payments service is working on a partnership with Russia Post that could prove a dramatic boost. Read more »
