• An increasing number of small-business owners have a positive outlook on the economy and on their own prospects, according to a survey from American Express Co. Some 72% of respondents expressed this optimism with respect to the next six months, up from 64% last year and 67% in 2015, according to …

• Mobile-payments provider LevelUp said it has closed a $50 million funding round with participation by existing investor JPMorgan Chase & Co. as well as US Boston and CentroCredit Bank. LevelUp, which says its user count is nearly 1 million, is the subject of a lawsuit by competitor CardFree Inc. alleging LevelUp fraudulently …

• EVO Payments International announced it purchased the remaining ownership interest in Zenith Merchant Services, a Montreal-based payments provider. Terms were not disclosed. • Payments processor Computer Services Inc. has integrated data from Dow Jones Risk & Compliance for sanctions screening to help clients control the risk of doing business with politically …

• The National Retail Federation on Friday launched a multimedia advertising campaign urging the House of Representatives to protect the Durbin Amendment. The campaign, which includes radio commercials targeting the districts of key Congressmen who have expressed support for repealing Durbin, comes as the House prepares to take up the Financial …

• Merchant processor Cayan has acquired Dallas-based Card Payment Services LLC, which processes more than $700 million annually for the waste-disposal industry. Terms were not announced. • Beanstream, a Canada-based payments provider that operated in the United States as Beanstream USA, has adopted its parent company’s name—Bambora—and will now will act as the …

• Visa Inc. said its April 2019 date for compliance with 3-D Secure 2.0, an online-commerce fraud-prevention standard, applies globally. In 2016, Visa had said compliance would start with Europe in April 2018. “We felt it was easier for our various stakeholders to have a single global date, so we aligned Europe accordingly,” …

• Visa Inc. announced that its 3-D Secure 2.0 program will begin in April 2019. 3-D Secure 2.0 is a measure managed by EMVCo that shares e-commerce transaction data between merchants and issuers in an effort to thwart fraudulent transactions and approve valid ones. EMVCo released the updated spec in October 2016. • Visa said grocer …

• Repeal of the Durbin Amendment took a step closer to reality with the passage of the Financial Choice Act by the House Financial Services Committee by a 34-26 vote. The full House is expected to take up the bill by the end of the month. • MoneyGram International Inc. said …

• Two executives of Commerce Payment Systems, which had been a Hewlett, N.Y.-based independent sales organization, have been charged in a $30 million scheme that overbilled more than 10,000 merchants, announced the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York this week following the unsealing of an indictment. The charges …

• Apple Inc., in its results for the second quarter ending April 1, said Apple Pay is available now in 15 markets, having launched in Taiwan and Ireland in March. Globally, that includes 20 million contactless-ready locations, of which 4.5 million are in the United States, said chief executive Tim Cook during …