For the China-based Alipay payments service, pursuing niche merchant markets in North America no longer is good enough. “When we’re looking at partners, we’re looking for ubiquity,” says Souheil Badran, president of Alipay North America. Those partners so far include First Data Corp., which in May opened its huge U.S. …

The connection between computing capacity and payment practice is obvious to all. While passing coins hand-to-hand remains a ritual, the bulk of human transactions are carried out through electronic computing. Now, all the computers that we know—mainframes, minis, PCs, tablets, smart phones, and so on—are a special case of a …

A survey for megabank Bank of America Corp. indicates that consumers of all ages are ready to embrace electronic person-to-person payments. BofA’s latest Trends in Consumer Mobility Report, released last month, found that 36% of all respondents use a P2P payments service. Market-research firm Convergys queried for the bank 1,005 …

• POS Portal Inc., a point-of-sale equipment distributor, said it is now supplying payment equipment via Retail Realm, a POS software distributor. • Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. said it is providing payment technology for Hyundai Motor UK’s “Click To Buy” platform, which lets consumers buy a car online from any participating …

• PayRange Inc., which specializes in mobile payments for vending machines, has extended its service to coin-operated laundry machines. The service is available for Speed Queen and Maytag machines, with other makes to come, the company said. • Quick-serve restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. updated consumers about a breach of its point-of-sale system …

• North American Bancard Holdings Inc. and Total Merchant Services Inc. will retain their unique brands and products in the immediate future following NAB’s acquisition of TMS, said NAB chief executive Marc Gardner. NAB announced the TMS acquisition last week. “The TMS brand will remain intact, its sales staff remains as …

• Phillips 66 Co. moved closer to the launch of its mobile-payments service for fuel purchases with the unveiling of its mobile-commerce platform developed in conjunction with P97 Networks Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay. • Payment gateway Shift4 Corp. announced its cofounders, J. David Oder and Katherine Oder, are entering …

• Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia reached an $18.5 million settlement with Target Corp. over its 2013 data breach, the Illinois Attorney Generals office announced. The breach affected more than 41 million payment card accounts and the contact information for more than 60 million consumers, the attorney general press release …

• Universal Secure Registry LLC, a developer of computer-security and mobile-payment services, alleges in a federal lawsuit that Apple Inc. and Visa Inc. infringed on its patents for electronic payments and identity authentication as they developed their mobile-payment services. Apple and Visa did not immediately respond to requests for comment. • The …

• U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., a former retailer, delivered a speech in the House of Representatives in favor of repealing the Durbin Amendment, drawing praise from the Electronic Payments Coalition, a lobbying group for banks and card networks. The House is considering H.R. 10, the Financial Choice Act, which would overhaul …