Alternative acquirers

Crypto played a key role in Square's 140% year-over-year growth in revenue for the third quarter — and 212% growth in gross profit for the Cash App alone.

MagicCube has launched i-Accept, a software-based replacement for traditional terminals, allowing acquiring banks and financial services providers to offer merchants an option for contactless and PIN payment acceptance through Android devices.

Longtime finance entrepreneur Jackie Reses, who led Square Capital for the last five years, is leaving the company at the end of the month. Square has not yet named a successor.

Square is moving to help minority and underserved groups by investing $100 million in nonprofit financial institutions and Black-owned businesses.

London-based Rapyd has added Mastercard and Visa acceptance to its European payments platform to help merchants take advantage of retail’s shift to online.

Square is entering the earned wage access (EWA) fray, but it’s taking a tailored approach that aims to drive transaction volume within its Cash App.

Facing Wall Street analysts for the first time after the murder of George Floyd, CEOs of major payment companies joined other financial services firms in promising to improve fairness and opportunities for Black people and other underrepresented groups.

Square's gross payment volume tumbled by 15% year-over-year due to COVID-19’s impact, but revenue jumped as online selling rose, Cash App doubled in users and Square enabled almost $900 million in PPP loans.

Square has begun holding onto a portion of some sellers’ payments, demonstrating how liquidity shortages challenge the recovery for both businesses and the companies that process their payments.

Square has added fuel to its growing Cash transfer service by agreeing to buy Verse, a Spanish P2P app.

Alfie’s Beer Bus found a niche as an offbeat character at events in the U.K. — like an ice cream truck, only with alcohol. Then the coronavirus came.

When the coronavirus pandemic began, Square pushed hard to get a bigger share of merchants' online sales and consumers' stimulus spending — and even received its long-desired bank license — but found that this wasn't enough to offset the effects of the crisis.

Merchant acquiring is a very face-to-face, sales-oriented business. And that culture has to change before any acquirers can convince their clients that they know how to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic.

Suneera Madhani, CEO of the digital acquirer Fattmerchant, tells PaymentsSource how the coronavirus pandemic has affected how her employees go to market with new payments technology — and how making the shift to digital helps both the acquirer and its clients.

The growth and monetization of Square’s Cash App boosted the company's quarterly earnings, along with the sale of its food delivery unit Caviar.

Square is adding to its menu of services just as long-established competitors embed expanding payments technology into their own product mix.

Square's merchants have shown early interest in cryptocurrency payments, and if merchants accept this new concept, it could exist along with other Square services to support numerous use cases, including broader financial services.

Payments security firm MyPINpad has received certification from the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council for its software-based PIN entry on Apple mobile and tablet devices.

The payments company has loaned $5.5 billion to 275,000 small businesses, thanks to a data-driven process free from human interaction.

The online platform lender Kabbage is making the move beyond just providing working capital loans to small businesses, putting it in direct competition with alternative acquirers and payment companies.