Formerly distinct holiday spending patterns are blurring, according to new data. The National Retail Federation reported Tuesday that Black Friday, traditionally known for swarms of consumers in stores, for the first time topped Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, for online shopping. And Adobe Inc.’s research unit reported that consumers …

Prices for Federal Reserve payment services to depository financial institutions will go up by an average of 2.4% on Jan. 2 under a new fee schedule approved last week by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The Fed estimates Check Services customers will see average price increases of 3.3%. Users …

Banks have closed thousands of branches in recent years, hitting rural America especially hard and leaving retail ATMs, prepaid cards, and services from non-bank providers to fill the void, according to a new Federal Reserve report. The “Perspectives from Main Street: Bank Branch Access in Rural Communities” report released Monday …

Following up on a $30-million investment in June, blockchain-services provider Ripple Labs Inc. has made another $20-million equity investment in wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc., making Ripple the owner of nearly 10% of MoneyGram’s common stock. Announced Monday, the new investment is no surprise. The companies indicated in June it …

Researchers and risk-control firms have been monitoring the increase in e-commerce fraud for years, and it’s hit home for a group of merchants surveyed by American Express Co. A newly released AmEx survey that included 400 business leaders says they estimate 27% of their firms’ annual online sales are fraudulent …

A leading credit-union service organization reported Wednesday that it has distributed half a million contactless payment cards through some of its members, and Mastercard Inc. has paired up with a French investment firm with an eye on bringing new fare technology to mass-transit systems. St. Petersburg, Fla.-based PSCU says it …

Venture capital continues to flow to payments companies, which ranked among the top recipients of financial-technology sector funding in the third quarter, according to a new report. And credit-union services organization PSCU announced it will invest $100 million in its payments platform over the next three years. Sweden-based Klarna, a …

Confirming rumors that the Federal Trade Commission is looking into issues involving debit card transaction routing, Visa Inc. late last week reported the Federal Trade Commission has asked it to voluntarily provide information about its routing practices. In a brief notice in its fiscal 2019 report to the Securities and …

Merchant processor Priority Technology Holdings Inc. posted an 11% increase in payment volume in the third quarter despite the wind-down of its once-sizable processing business for online subscription billers. Alpharetta, Ga.-based Priority said it processed $10.8 billion in merchant bank card volume versus $9.71 billion in 2018’s third quarter, on …

Compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard remains an elusive goal for many merchants and other organizations that handle general-purpose payment card data. In fact, compliance fell in 2018 for the second year in a row, according to Verizon Communications Inc. Verizon’s newly released Payment Security Report says only …