Bitcoin may remain volatile and controversial, but the digital currency holds enough potential that it is starting to attract seasoned payments professionals, particularly in the business of merchant acceptance. Witness Bitnet, founded in January by a pair of former executives with payments processor CyberSource Corp. to make it easier for …

Apple Inc. is making a change in the mobile point-of-sale hardware it uses at its 254 U.S. retail stores. In an exclusive deal, the consumer-brand manufacturer has begun using mobile POS devices produced by VeriFone Systems Inc., the San Jose, Calif.-based payment-terminal maker says. Apple outfits its employees with mobile …

A U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit alleging anti-competitive behavior by American Express Co. can proceed, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled Wednesday. Seventeen states also are plaintiffs in the case. n The case is important because of the government’s continuing inquiry …

Despite the impending loss of consumer payment cards from mega-bank JPMorgan Chase & Co., MasterCard Inc. is winning new business from U.S. card issuers, its top executives said Thursday at the No. 2 payment card network’s first-quarter earnings call. U.S. credit card purchase volume grew 8.1% year-over-year to $138 billion …

Leading payment card processor First Data Corp. on Wednesday reported it lost less money in the first quarter than it did a year earlier despite price compression in its merchant-acquiring business and slow debit card transaction growth. Atlanta-based First Data typically posts an operating profit but a net loss after …

Independent sales organizations and acquirers considering mobile ticketing as a value-add service to sell to merchants have a new option. n The service works like this. Merchants use a Web portal to set up their events, including details about the name, Web site, times, available tickets, and pricing. Chirrpy also …

In an effort to become easier for merchant acquirers, merchants, and card issuers to deal with, Visa Inc. late this year will eliminate almost 50% of its operating rules, which currently total more than 1,500 pages, chief executive Charles W. Scharf said Thursday. Scharf made that revelation at Visa’s second-quarter …

A revised set of network fees from Visa Inc. could hit merchant aggregators hard when the revisions take effect next April, according to payments-industry sources. Depending on the size and number of aggregators’ sponsored merchants, the revisions could significantly boost actual fee payments as well as drive up programming and …

  An industry as intrinsic to commerce as electronic payments is unlikely to make wholesale moves to new technologies like mobile payments. That applies to consumers, too, who appear to be moderating their use of mobile payments. Data from the IDC Financial Insights 2014 Consumer Payments Survey reveal that consumer …

It may be headquartered in Leawood, Kan., but payment-services provider Euronet Worldwide Inc. looks abroad for most of its revenues. Thanks to a new deal with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., however, Euronet’s Ria unit is about to become a major force in domestic wire transfers. Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart on Thursday unveiled …