Digital Currency

The Western Union Co., which has been expanding its digital footprint for several years, announced a major move on Wednesday into Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Online and mobile money transfers will start over the next few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, the company said, with service already …

In its latest update about the U.S. conversion from magnetic-stripe to EMV chip cards, Visa Inc. said more than 3.1 million merchant locations accepted chip cards as of June versus only 392,000 in September 2015. The number of Visa chip cards increased 214% in that time to 499.7 million. Some …

Merchant processor Payment Data Systems Inc. said its FiCentive prepaid card subsidiary will provide program management and processing and develop Web and mobile applications for University Fancards, which offers university-branded gift and reloadable prepaid cards. Speedpay Inc., Western Union’s bill-payment unit, has adopted a customer-guidance tool based on artificial intelligence …

Worldnet TPS Ltd. launched GoChipNow, a service for virtual-terminal merchants to convert to EMV chip card acceptance. VSoft Corp., which specializes in information-technology products for financial institutions, said it will integrate a payment service from Payrailz into its digital banking platform. Total investment in startups specializing in artificial intelligence, an …

Distributed-ledger payments provider Ripple Labs on Thursday announced three cryptocurrency exchanges that will work with its xRapid cross-border payments product. XRapid uses Ripple’s XRP digital currency and depends on exchanges to translate transactions into local fiat currencies. San Francisco-based Ripple said it is partnering with Bittrex for exchanges to U.S. …

Don’t look for many optimists in the payments industry when it comes to a future with less fraud. Fully 84% of those surveyed by TD Bank say payments fraud will become a bigger threat over the next one to two years. Released Tuesday, the survey, conducted this spring at the …

Users of Square Inc.’s Cash App can now buy and sell Bitcoin in all states, according to a tweet the company sent at mid-day Monday. The Bitcoin capability, which Square introduced in November as a pilot, is hardly a major business for the San Francisco-based payments company, but it is starting …

Point-of-sale system provider POSaBIT Inc. announced nine stores of the Starbuds recreational marijuana-dispensary chain will use its POS system. Though POSaBIT, in its press release, did not disclose specifically which payments Starbuds will accept via the POS system, its Web site lists debit card and cryptocurrency acceptance as alternatives to …

The FBI privately warned banks on Friday that cybercriminals are preparing a big “ATM cashout” operation, a choreographed global scheme in which fraudsters hack a bank or payment processor, plant malware that attempts to disable banks’ ATM withdrawal limits and related transaction controls, and use cloned payment cards to withdraw potentially …

Bitcoin’s volatility may have dampened the payments industry’s enthusiasm for the cryptocurrency, but payments players are now reaping patent awards for Bitcoin-related inventions they filed years ago. The latest example is Intuit Inc., the Mountain View, Calif.-based company behind the popular Quicken and QuickBooks accounting programs for consumers and small …