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- The first Bitcoin futures contracts began trading at 6 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday and almost right away the volume of activity crashed a Web site operated by the exchange, Cboe Global Markets Inc. After an initial run up, Bitcoin was trading around $16,500 by 10 a.m. Monday. A rival exchange, CME Group Inc., will begin trading Bitcoin futures Dec. 18.
- Digital Debit Group launched an Android-based version of its mobile-payments app for Bitcoin.
- The Federal Reserve System announced its new payments security strategy leader, Kenneth Montgomery, currently first vice president and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Montgomery, who will retain his Boston Fed position, will lead the Fed’s effort to reduce fraud risk, and serve as chairperson of its Secure Payments Task Force. He succeeds Todd Aadland, a senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago who is taking on new responsibilities at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
- SunTrust Banks Inc. said it has launched the bank-owned Zelle person-to-person payments service for its customers, replacing Popmoney, a service offered by processor Fiserv Inc.
- In related news, BNY Mellon said its Treasury Services business has enabled Zelle for payments to individuals from corporate and institutional clients.
- A Moscow-based security firm said a previously undetected group of Russian-language hackers stole nearly $10 million from at least 18 banks, including 15 in the United States, over the past several years through ATMs by targeting inter-bank transfer systems, Reuters reported; the first such attack reportedly hit First Data Corp.’s Star network in the spring of 2016.
- Galileo Processing added artificial-intelligence capabilities to its fraud-detection services with the launch of its Fraud AI product.
- Cardtronics plc, which operates about 20,000 mostly retail ATMs in the United Kingdom, said it may reduce its U.K. ATM count and impose fees on many currently no-fee machines if a plan by the country’s Link ATM network to reduce interchange paid by card issuers to ATM deployers over four years is implemented, according to the BBC.
- Citigroup Inc.’s Treasury and Trade Solutions unit said it has expanded its WorldLink Payment Services cross-border automated clearing house capability to 10 additional countries, bringing to 60 the number of nations the service works with. The 10 new markets are in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region.
- The Western Union Co., currently based in the Denver suburb of Englewood, added a second site in Denver’s Tech Center district for its planned relocated headquarters operations.
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