Transaction Processing

The international financial-messaging service SWIFT is set to offer a gateway for U.S. financial institutions to link to a real-time payments facility offered by The Clearing House, a payments company owned by major U.S. banks. Team One Credit Union, a Michigan financial institution, has added Bukoski Agency, a fuel retailer, to its …

There’s some good news for U.S. debit card issuers in the form of reduced fraud rates, according to the 2017 Debit Issuer Study released Monday by Pulse, the electronic funds transfer network owned by Discover Financial Services. The fraud-loss rate for signature-debit transactions fell 30% from 2015’s 2.6 cents per …

Merchant-payments provider iPayment Inc. is getting into the burgeoning merchant cash-advance business with iPayment Capital, a new unit expected to come online in the fall. Headed by former Bizfi executive Tomo Matsuo, the unit will initially focus on the funding needs of iPayment’s 137,000 merchants. IT security professionals are struggling to respond to cybersecurity …

Smaller retailers haven’t yet closed the EMV-acceptance gap with big ones, but they are making progress on installing EMV chip card readers at the point of sale, according to findings from a recent survey for the National Retail Federation. The online poll found that 60% of small brick-and-mortar retailers had …

Less than two weeks after a hard fork in its code that some observers feared might devalue Bitcoin, the digital currency is riding high. Early Sunday, Bitcoin’s price soared past $4,000 for the first time. The coin traded at $4,106 by late afternoon, up 7% over the previous 24 hours, …

Factor4 LLC, which offers a white-label gift card and loyalty solution to independent sales organizations and small businesses, has integrated its platform with Click a Waiter Inc., an online-ordering service for restaurants. Payments provider Merchant Consulting Group Inc. announced its payments service will be integrated into Parkloco’s parking-focused software. Processor JetPay Corp. said second-quarter …

Planet Payment Inc., a specialist processor focused on multi-currency and related international payment services, this week said it has begun “a process to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives focused on maximizing shareholder value,” a process that could result in the sale of the company. The review also could result …

Consumer revolving credit outstandings, most of which are credit card debt, hit a record $1.02 trillion in June, the Federal Reserve reported this week. The new high is 0.1% higher than the old record set in April 2008, just as the financial crisis of 2008-09 was gathering steam. Relying on leaked …

In a brief filed Aug. 7, the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court not to take up an appeal over a lower-court ruling upholding a so-called steering practice by American Express Co. The DoJ, which in 2010 joined 17 states in suing AmEx over the practice, argues …

The financial crisis of 2007-09 forced many banks to retreat from small-business lending, leaving a gap that digital-payments companies have rushed to fill. The latest move in this direction came Thursday, when PayPal Holdings Inc. said it has a deal to buy Swift Financial Corp., a Wilmington, Del.-based lender founded …