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 …

By René Pelegero The Fed’s task force has made a lot of progress, and on some fronts the results look promising. So why does it seem like the creation story of Visa and Mastercard all over again? It has been a long time since the initial Faster Payments discussions in …

There are several reasons why you can’t rely on law and regulation, says Ed Adshead-Grant. Here’s where they fall short and what you should do about it. Initiatives like open banking and faster payments have ushered in a whole new era in the world of business-to-business payments. The industry is …