Boosted by the rapid rise of chip card payments in Asia and the United States, more than half of general-purpose credit and debit cards worldwide now have an EMV chip, EMVCo reported Thursday. Plus, nearly two-thirds of card-present transactions now involve an EMV card being read by a point-of-sale terminal that …

Boosted by higher cardholder spending, American Express Co.’s discount revenue grew 9% in the first quarter despite a year-over-year decline in its average worldwide discount rate. AmEx reported late Wednesday that discount revenue hit $5.89 billion compared with $5.39 billion a year earlier. Discount revenue is by far AmEx’s largest …

Russia gets a bad rap because of its notorious hackers, but more U.S. e-commerce fraud originates from China and Venezuela than Russia, according to a new report from Experian plc. Experian, which is based in Dublin, Ireland, but has large U.S. businesses in credit reports and marketing and data services, …

American Express Co. disclosed Monday that it will end its multi-merchant Plenti rewards program on July 10. AmEx announced the closure through a tweet on the Plenti Twitter feed and on Plenti’s Web site. “While Plenti has grown in scale since its launch, a number of factors, including shifting priorities …

President Donald Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on about 1,300 Chinese products worth $50 billion have the merchant-acquiring industry worried. The Electronic Transactions Association, a national payments-industry trade group, joined more than 100 other organizations in signing a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee leadership expressing their “deep concern” …

Uber and mass-transit software developer Masabi Ltd. have struck an agreement that will allow transit tickets and passes to be displayed on Uber’s mobile app. Masabi’s apps and software systems for transit are used in 30-plus metropolitan areas, including on the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road commuter-rail systems in …

Data breaches at restaurants and hotels are nothing new, but a just-out report from Verizon Communications Inc. shows how extensively the hospitality industry gets hit by hackers. New York City-based Verizon, which besides telecommunications has a large business in investigating data breaches, says in its latest annual breach study that …

Creating statements optimized for mobile devices is the biggest area of development for new digital payment options from billers, according to recent research done for payment technology provider ACI Worldwide Inc. The study by London-based technology researcher Ovum in December and January gathered responses from 1,032 executives in 10 countries …

Payment card networks and merchant acquirers still don’t have a solid read about how many merchants will take advantage of the networks’ new signature-optional policies that take effect this month. A merchant trade group, however, expects more than half of its members will cease requiring cardholder signatures at the point …

Point-of-sale integrators, help desks, and other computer-related service providers for businesses, look out—the hackers are after you. The new Global Security Report 2018 from Chicago-based Trustwave says service providers were involved in 9.5% of the 700-plus data compromises the firm investigated in 2017. In 2016, service providers played a role …