Transaction Processing

• Tablet-based point-of-sale provider Revel Systems launched Revel University, an online training service for merchants using its technology. • Payments provider BlueSnap Inc. said merchants using its Powered Buy Platform now can accept Apple Pay transactions. • Nineteen percent of consumers used person-to-person payments through a financial institution in the past 30 days in a …

As the U.S. payments system collectively ambles toward real-time payments, proponents will have to ensure its benefits outweigh those of existing expedited payments options. That’s one recommendation from the “Justifying Real-Time Payments in the United States” report released Tuesday by Maynard, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The report examines the …

• Groundwork, a payments service for school sports, launched its service to let parents use bank accounts or cards to make payments for team expenses. Teams pay a fee of 2% plus 30 cents, with an additional charge for card payments, with all payment communication with parents managed by the Groundwork …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Chipmaker Gemalto N.V. and risk-management firm ThreatMetrix Inc. announced that they are jointly providing online authentication technology to banks, payment-service providers, payment networks, and financial startups. Through a single vendor relationship, the companies’ customers can get access to ThreatMetrix’s Digital Identity Network and Amsterdam-based Gemalto’s various authentication …

Gift cards issued by retailers are heating up, according to the latest research from Mercator Advisory Group. Total loads grew 6% in 2016 to reach $133.9 billion, Mercator’s Ben Jackson tells Digital Transactions News. That performance follows a decline in loads the year before. The research, which covers closed-loop gift …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The number of data breaches tracked by the Identity Theft Resource Center in 2017 hit 698 as of May 30, a 35.3% increase over the record pace of a year ago when the ITRC flagged 516 breaches in 2016’s first five months. The San Diego-based nonprofit monitors …

• EDGE Mobile Payments LLC, which offers a card-consolidation device, said it is offering users of the former Coin card a discount on the purchase of its EDGE Card. Fitbit Inc. purchased Coin in 2016, and the service was shuttered earlier this year. • PayPal Holdings Inc.’s dominance in e-commerce payments …

Finally, the rumors can stop. Sage Payment Solutions, the U.S. merchant-services arm of Sage Group plc, has been sold to GTCR LLC, a Chicago-based private-equity firm, for $260 million, GTCR announced Friday. Reports of a possible sale of the company, which counts approximately 100,000 merchants in its portfolio, originally surfaced …

• Marking an end to American Express Co.’s cobranded card losing streak, hotel chain Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. named AmEx as its exclusive credit card issuer effective Jan. 1, according to Bloomberg. AmEx and Citigroup Inc., which took over issuance of the Costco Wholesale Corp. cobranded card from AmEx a year …

With chip cards and contactless mobile transactions gradually working their way into more merchant checkouts, Square Inc. is pairing a couple of tried-and-true offers to push an 18-month-old card reader that handles both EMV and Apple Pay. In the latest wave of a promotional campaign that was announced in January, Square earlier …