• Processor Fiserv Inc. will market Early Warning LLC’s clearXchange person-to-person real-time payments network to its financial-institution clients under a new agreement. The deal follows a similar arrangement the companies reached last year for real-time bill payments and deposits. Fiserv also said adjusted second-quarter revenues in its payments segment increased nearly 11% …

Card-brand efforts to improve consumers’ perceptions of EMV transaction speeds took a step ahead this week when a grocer debuted updated EMV software on its point-of-sale systems. New Seasons Markets, including its New Leaf Community Markets unit, is now using the Quick Chip and M/Chip Fast technologies from Visa Inc. …

By Jim Daly @DTPaymentNews Square Inc. reported Wednesday that its payment volume grew 42% in the second quarter to $12.5 billion, and, while still reporting a loss, the merchant processor edged toward profitability as its adjusted revenues jumped 54%. Square, which began signing merchants in 2010, also raised its financial …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A relatively new program geared at shoring up data security at small merchants is making progress toward a crucial January deadline, but not without some full-throated grumbling, if comments and questions at an industry trade show this week in Grapevine, Texas, were any indication. The program, …

• FinTech Acquisition Corp. announced it has completed its acquisition of processor CardConnect LLC, which has become a wholly owned subsidiary. Renamed CardConnect Corp., the company began trading Monday on the NASDAQ under the symbol “CCN.” • Epson America Inc. launched the Envision mSelect Partner program to help mobile point-of-sale …

Apple Inc. is notoriously tightlipped about how its Apple Pay mobile-payments service is doing, and the occasion of the computing giant’s quarterly earnings call late Tuesday was no exception. Still, while Apple chief executive Tim Cook said little to satisfy widespread curiosity about the wallet’s adoption and usage among consumers, …

The United States remains one of the world’s last bastions of the paper check, a situation a startup called Checkbook Inc. sees as a massive opportunity. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has been working for the last two years on a system that it says allows businesses and individuals to use …

• Processor Vantiv Inc. launched the One Network Experience service for software developers. Dubbed O.N.E., the service offers a suite of integration tools, personalized help, and access to an online developer community. • Meta Financial Group Inc. said Meta Payment Systems, a division of MetaBank, a major prepaid card issuer, …

• MasterCard Inc. is mulling an application to become a licensed payment service provider in China, a massive payments market dominated by state-owned China UnionPay, according to Reuters. • agreement with Visa Inc. that includes promotion of Visa cards and a new point-of-sale thrust for PayPal. Visa was trading at …

• American Express Co. reported $2 billion in net income for the second quarter, including a $1.1 billion pre-tax gain from the sale of its Costco Wholesale Corp. cobranded portfolio to Citigroup Inc., which is now issuing a cobranded