E-Commerce

Mobile-authentication technology provider Payfone Inc. raised $24 million in a funding round led by credit-reporting agency TransUnion with participation from previous investor Synchrony Financial and two institutional investors. TransUnion said it will integrate Payfone’s Trust Platform and Trust Score with its identity products, and become Payfone’s primary partner for regulated …

Independent sales organization Payroc LLC launched RewardPay and CashRewards, programs aimed at offering merchants card-network-compliant services for surcharging and cash discounts at the point of sale. A report from Transaction Network Services Inc. shows 26% of survey respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia who own a …

Merchant-services platform provider Shopify Inc. on Monday launched its first North American brand campaign, a marketing effort aimed at entrepreneurs that could have the side effect of making Shopify one of those rare payment processors that has a modicum of brand recognition among consumers. The reason for that is that …

Two the nation’s biggest banks on Friday reported gains in card volume, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. showing double-digit increases in merchant-processing volume as well as card spending. Chase’s first-quarter merchant volume totaled $356.5 billion, a 13% increase over the same period in 2018. The massive Chase Merchant Services unit …

Visa Inc. will lower its merchant dispute and fraud ratios in October. Merchants that exceed the revised ratios could be placed in monitoring programs meant to control risk. Visa hasn’t announced the new standards publicly, but has informed the merchant-acquiring community. Digital Transactions News obtained some of the key new …

EBay Inc. announced Monday that its managed-payments platform, introduced in September, has now added PayPal on top of Google Pay, Apple Pay, and credit, debit, and gift cards. A report Wednesday, however, indicates PayPal availability is limited. A startup called Obligo said it is enabling renters to make so-called move-in …

There has been a “noticeable increase” in fraud on credits and debits on the automated clearing house network, according to the latest “Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report” from the Association for Financial Professionals. Some 33% of responding organizations reported ACH debit fraud in 2018, up from 28% in 2017, …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has posted some important policy changes set to take effect soon, including one that will stop refunding sellers for the commission part of the fee they pay on sales when buyers cancel. Sellers on forums like Reddit have been reacting for at least the last five days …

i3 Verticals Inc. completed its $24 million acquisition of Northeast Texas Data LLC and Graves Humphries Stahl LLC, collectively known as Net Data, which provides software services, including payment acceptance, to municipalities and local government agencies primarily in Texas. Millersville University adopted the ACI student payment portal from ACI Worldwide …

Checkbook, a provider of digital-check technology, introduced Instant Pay, a service that lets businesses push funds into consumer and corporate bank accounts using Visa Direct, Visa Inc.’s push-payments network. Checkbook’s founder is PJ Gupta, former chief network architect at Visa. First American Payment Systems LP said it now offers Idealpos’s …