After a long period of stability, bank card interchange rates may be about to change. Visa Inc. reportedly is planning adjustments that could raise merchants’ acceptance costs for card-not-present transactions but lower costs in some other categories, including purchases at big grocery-store chains. Citing a Visa document circulating among the …

Mastercard Inc. is the latest U.S. payments company to take initial steps to operate in China with Tuesday’s announcement it will form a joint venture with NetsUnion Clearing Corp. to establish a domestic bank card clearing entity. The entity formed from the joint venture—Mastercard NUCC Information Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd.—received …

Visa Inc. reportedly is planning interchange rate changes that could raise merchants’ acceptance costs for card-not-present transactions but lower costs in some other categories, including purchases at big grocery-store chains. Citing a Visa document circulating among the network’s client banks, the Bloomberg news service reported Tuesday that interchange for a …

A push by big retailers to have certain payment-network rules scuttled in court is keeping one of the biggest cases in the history of the payments business alive. What will happen now? If you thought the massive—and massively complex—payments litigation known officially as In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and …

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on Financial Technology held a hearing Thursday morning titled “Is Cash Still King? Reviewing the Rise of Mobile Payments.” Witnesses included representatives from PayPal, the U.S. Faster Payments Council, the Brookings Institute, Consumer Reports, and a New York City non-profit dedicated to financial …

WEX Inc., a processor in the fleet-fueling and corporate transaction market, said it has agreed to acquire eNett, a business-to-business payments software company specializing in the travel market, and Optal, a specialist provider of B2B transactions, for approximately $1.275 billion in cash and approximately 2 million shares of WEX common …

The newly-signed trade agreement between the United States and China, the number-one and number-two global economies, respectively, finally provides an avenue for U.S. payments firms to operate independently in China. Joint payments ventures with a local Chinese partner have long been the norm, but the new U.S.-China trade agreement—signed Jan. …

MoneyGram International Inc. announced online transactions grew more than 70% year-over-year between Dec. 1 and Dec. 25, a record growth rate for that period. The money-transfer provider, which did not report the actual transaction volume, said 80% of the transactions were initiated on a mobile device.PayPal Holdings Inc. has closed on its …

PINs are past their prime. Signatures? Forget it. With criminals increasingly on the prowl, much more robust technology is needed. The good news is such tech is available. But will consumers tolerate it? Despite a now almost 3-year-old decision by the four major U.S. card brands to make signatures optional …

PayPal Holdings Inc. officially opened the door to a vast market for payments on Thursday with the closing of its deal for 70% of the equity in China’s Guofubao Information Technology Co. Ltd., better known as Gopay. The Peoples Bank of China had already okayed the deal, for which terms were …