Ideally, merchants that use payment card acceptance services would know which merchant acquirers they work with. But in a recent report from research firm Aite Group LLC, the most common response when merchants were asked to name their acquirers was “Don’t know.” Of the 491 U.S. merchants surveyed for …

  PayPal Inc., the financial services arm of marketplace eBay Inc., continues to work on expanding PayPal acceptance beyond e-commerce, and its decision last month to buy Braintree Payment Solutions LLC for $800 million is one part of that effort, eBay executives said Wednesday. EBay has been expanding the number …

By Jim Daly In a move that apparently signals its intention to become a more diversified financial-services provider, Square Inc. on Tuesday introduced a person-to-person payments service called Square Cash. The service, which works through email or mobile apps, has no fees for either the sender or recipient and only …

The carrier-controlled Isis mobile-payments system on Monday unveiled a new version of its application and predicted that about 30 million mobile phones will support the near-field-communication-based product by the end of 2014. Speaking at an industry trade show in Las Vegas, Michael Abbott, Isis’s chief executive, demonstrated the new mobile …

The average ATM surcharge rose 4% over the last year, but the average foreign fee fell 2.5%, according to new data from research firm Bankrate Inc. Findings from Bankrate’s latest annual survey of checking-account fees, including ATM and overdraft charges, shows overall price increases have slowed, a possible indication that …

EBay Inc.’s agreement to shell out $800 million for Braintree Payments Solutions LLC, announced on Thursday, signals the online auction giant’s desire to extend its PayPal brand further into mobile commerce and in-store commerce, analysts suggest. EBay’s confirmation of the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, …

  The upcoming Version 3.0 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is being billed as having more than a few tweaks but not wholesale changes from the three-year-old Version 2.0 that it will replace in November. “It’s a medium-sized change,” says Anton Chuvakin, research director, security and risk …

Phishers are casting their lines at more brands in hopes of luring Internet users into divulging data that they can use fraudulently, according to a new study from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). According to the study, which covers the first half of 2013, criminals targeted 720 brands, up almost …

Social-media payments specialist Chirpify on Thursday introduced a service that lets marketers promote hashtags on a wide variety of media to solicit purchases. The so-called action tags can appear on TV or radio commercials, in print advertising, or on billboards and then be used on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the …

By John Stewart n Independent sales organizations are starting to feel squeezed by technology companies selling tablet-based point-of-sale solutions to merchants, according to terminal kingpin VeriFone Systems Inc. So VeriFone on Wednesday rolled out a tablet-based platform for its resellers that they can price and market to their merchants. n …