Transaction Processing

When it comes to contactless electronic payment transactions, the U.S. payments industry seems to be more interested in using smart phones than plastic debit or credit cards. But other countries have gone the opposite route. In the United Kingdom, for example, spending on contactless cards reached a record £3.4 billion …

Processor First Data Corp. and Fleetcor Technologies Inc. are forming a joint venture to consolidate their gift card businesses, First Data announced Monday. The joint venture, whose name was not released, combines First Data’s gift card business, digital gift-card provider Transaction Wireless Inc., and its Gyft unit, with Fleetcor’s Stored …

Ever since Ant Financial Services Group let it be known in October that it is working with key payments players like VeriFone Systems Inc. and First Data Corp. to bring its Alipay mobile-payments service to North America, the industry has wondered about the Chinese company’s strategy both in the United …

In an early glimpse of how U.S. businesses are using faster payments, the governing body for the automated clearing house issued survey results last month showing that 90% of respondents at surveyed financial institutions report same-day ACH origination volume at or above what they expected. Despite that higher-than-expected volume, the …

Security jitters have hit the payments industry, and it’s no wonder. The arrival of new and sophisticated ways to spoof identities, coupled with the rapid rise of mobile usage for banking and payments, has created a minefield for security professionals charged with guarding accounts and the money they hold. The …

The bad news about payments risk just keeps on coming. The Anti-Phishing Working Group Inc. reported this week that phishing attacks reached an all-time high in 2016, totaling 1,220,523. That was up fully 65% over 2015, the group says in its latest quarterly report. Another way to look at the …

• Merchant processor Sterling Payment Technologies, a unit of EVO Payments International, has partnered with RPower Point of Sale, a vendor of point-of-sale software for restaurants, to offer an EMV solution for the hospitality industry. • Merchant processor Square Inc. introduced Caviar pickup, a new feature on its Caviar restaurant food-ordering and delivery service that …

In today’s 4G world, connected homes allow you to turn on lights, turn down thermostats, or activate sprinklers, all remotely. Wearables wake you up and tell you how long and how well you slept. Fingerprints, faces, even the rhythm of your heart are replacing passwords. There’s a lot happening on the connectivity …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Square Inc.’s stock hit a record high Thursday in the wake of a strong fourth-quarter financial report. Now the merchant processor is looking to an updated point-of-sale system for retailers called

• Puerto Rico-based Evertec Inc. said revenue in its merchant-acquiring unit declined 1% in the fourth quarter to $23.1 million while revenue in its payment-processing segment grew 0.4% to $28.9 million. Evertec announced it has an agreement to buy Chile-based EFT Group S.A., a payment processor and software company that uses the …