Square Inc. released a software development kit to enable merchants and developers to use Square for their payments processing in apps. Announced Wednesday, the SDK marks a first for Square and creates a single platform for transactions made by Square merchants that also sell in stores. The SDK is available …

More consumers took to their smart phones this past Friday, known as Black Friday, at the expense of shopping online with a desktop computer, finds Akamai Technologies, a Web-services company. Consumers using mobile devices accounted for 57.6% of online shopping on Nov. 23, compared with 35.9% for those using desktop …

For years, PayPal Holdings Inc. has worked to expand its reach to physical merchants, and now, with the closing on Thursday of its $2.2 billion acquisition of Stockholm-based iZettle AB, the digital-payments company is taking a significant step in achieving that ambition. At a stroke, the acquisition brings to PayPal …

Nobody knows for sure, but some time this year Amazon.com Inc. could unleash a double-barreled assault on the world of physical-store payments. As our cover story this month lays out, the Seattle colossus has already introduced Amazon Pay Places, a mobile order-ahead application for Amazon Pay, and is working to …

Mastercard Inc.’s latest SpendingPulse report says year-over-year holiday sales increased 4.9%, their best showing since 2011. Online sales grew 18.1%. The report for the Nov. 1-Dec. 24 period covers all payment types, including cash and checks. Without being more specific, Amazon.com Inc. said “millions” of members of Amazon Prime shopped …

Early reports about consumer spending over the long Thanksgiving weekend indicate that merchant processors serving both brick-and-mortar and online merchants can expect more payment volume this year than last. With CyberMonday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, now in full swing, the outlook for online sales is strong if a report from …

The U.S. conversion to EMV is close to two years old now, and in its wake have come unquestioned benefits. But this cure for widespread counterfeit card fraud also has ushered in excruciating side effects. It’s easy to forget that the Europay-Mastercard-Visa chip card standard is more than 20 years …

By Jim Daly and John Stewart The U.S. conversion to EMV is close to two years old now, and in its wake have come unquestioned benefits. But this cure for widespread counterfeit card fraud also has ushered in excruciating side effects. It’s easy to forget that the Europay-Mastercard-Visa chip card …

Card-not-present fraud is growing as EMV chip cards make it harder for fraudsters to use counterfeit credit and debit cards at the point of sale, but perceptions about the reasons for the increase may need some clarification, according to the U.S. Payments Forum. “Some of the reports of large rises …

E-commerce platform provider Shopify Inc. is facing pressure to cut ties with a controversial client, the Breitbart alt-right online news site. On Thursday, activist groups plan to present a petition with 140,000 signatures at Shopify’s Ottawa, Ontario, headquarters, demanding that the processor cut off Breitbart as a client. The news …