Monday , January 12, 2026

Competitive Strategies

High-End Merchants Look to Cash in on Wealth Effect From Run-up in Bitcoin’s Value

Bitcoin has taken a beating in recent days, but investors who bought earlier this year are still enjoying handsome returns. Now, some merchants of high-end goods are signing up to accept the virtual currency, hoping to cash in on that wealth effect. Bitcoin was trading at $3,498 early Thursday morning, …

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First Data Notes Hurricane Impact and other Digital Transactions News briefs

Citing the recent huge data breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc., the National Retail Federation and other trade groups in a letter to Congressional leaders said any new federal law governing data-breach notifications should apply to all industries that handle consumer data. The groups want a uniform federal standard to replace the …

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With its New iPhone X, Apple Brings Facial Biometric Authentication to Apple Pay

The Apple Pay mobile-payments service got only a few brief mentions in a nearly two-hour presentation Tuesday afternoon in which Apple Inc. executives introduced the latest versions of their 10-year-old iPhone and other new products. But what they did say could change payment security because the new iPhone X will …

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LevelUp Reaches Open Dining Agreement and other Digital Transactions News

ICBA Bancard, the card-processing unit of the Independent Community Bankers of America trade group, said it will offer member banks a card-not-present authentication service through Visa Inc.’s CardinalCommerce subsidiary. Mobile-payment provider LevelUp has reached an agreement with Open Dining, a vendor of mobile order-ahead technology, to list restaurants using Open Dining’s platform …

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MagicCube Prepares for a PIN-on-Glass PCI Specification Due Later This Year

In anticipation of an upcoming PCI Security Standards Council specification for enabling PIN-on-glass transactions with consumer mobile devices, MagicCube released MC-Screen Shield, a back-end technology to help secure the PIN. PIN-on-glass technology—in which the PIN is entered via a display instead of using a dedicated PIN pad—has been available for …

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How Online Payments Will Change, or Won’t Change, Upon Amazon’s Patent Expiration

Patents usually get the most attention when a person or company files for one, but the one held by Amazon.com Inc. for single-click buying that is set to expire Tuesday is generating plenty of buzz about how much, if at all, e-commerce will change when it’s gone. Granted by the …

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Irma Rains on PCI Council Meeting and other Digital Transactions News briefs

Q2 Holdings Inc., a provider of digital-banking solutions, launched CardSwap, an application that allows consumers to automatically switch credit or debit card information across their network of subscription and retail merchants. The first client to adopt the service is Chime, which provides branchless bank accounts. Because of Hurricane Irma, the PCI Security …

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Digital Transactions