Apple Inc., whose Apple Pay is the leading mobile-payment service based on near field communication technology, reportedly is testing Quick Response codes as an alternative technology with Apple Pay. That development was first reported Tuesday by the 9 to 5 Mac blog, which said a second beta version of the …

Taking a page from Square Inc.’s playbook, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo peer-to-peer payments service is testing what it calls Venmo Business Profiles, a potentially revenue-generating service that enables Venmo users who are sole proprietors of small businesses to sell goods through an affiliated page visible to other Venmo users. Announced …

Before being upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment choices U.S. consumers made were fairly stable. The biggest changes from 2018 to 2019 were an upswing in online bill payments and continued slippage in cash usage, according to new findings from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Based on a …

A new rule requiring all financial institutions in the automated clearing house network to participate in ACH governing body Nacha’s contact registry took effect Wednesday. The registry’s purpose is to enable financial institutions to quickly find the appropriate person to resolve issues when a transaction looks fraudulent or presents other …

A new European Commission report shows how interchange regulation has lowered merchants’ payment card acceptance costs and taken more than $3 billion a year from card issuers’ top lines. The EC, the executive arm of the Brussels-based European Union, implemented its so-called Interchange Fee Regulation in 2015 and 2016. The …

The new regime at unattended-payments provider USA Technologies Inc. is now in place after a proxy fight that deposed the old management team and board of directors, and it’s looking for growth from underexploited opportunities and cost-cutting. “With the uncertainties of the proxy contest now behind us combined with a …

Facing criticism for withholding as much as 30% of some small merchants’ payment volume, merchant processor and business software provider Square Inc. on Tuesday posted an explanation of its new reserve policy. “Out of our millions of sellers, fewer than 0.3% have reserves on their accounts, but given increased interest, …

Splitit Payments Ltd. announced Thursday that it had signed a multiyear agreement with Mastercard Inc. intended to accelerate adoption of its installment-payment service for online merchants. The distribution agreement opens the possibility of Mastercard-accepting merchants offering Splitit as a financing option to their customers. New York City-based Splitit also has …

Store card provider Synchrony Financial on Wednesday launched a program that offers small businesses grants through community organizations and includes access to digital payment tools and consulting services. The initiative comes as many small businesses struggle with the economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as closures and damage …

Merchant processor Net Element Inc. has a letter of intent to merge with Mullen Technologies Inc., a privately held startup that plans to sell Chinese-made electric sports cars in the U.S. The pending deal, announced Monday, requires Net Element to divest its payment-processing business. The so-called “reverse triangular merger” is …