Kohl’s Launches Kohl’s Pay and other Digital Transactions News briefs

• A federal judge in California has allowed an antitrust case to move forward against American Express Co., Discover Financial Services, MasterCard Inc., and Visa Inc. The case was filed in March by Florida merchants as a class-action suit alleging the networks had conspired to shift chargeback liability from banks to merchants as part of the U.S. transition from mag-stripe to chip cards. The judge dismissed the eight big banks originally named in the merchants’ complaint but cautioned them to preserve documents and said they could be brought back into the case later if evidence showed they were complicit.

• Retailer Kohl’s Corp. launched Kohl’s Pay, a bar code-based mobile payment service for consumers who have the Kohl’s Charge private-label credit card. Kohl’s Pay is for in-store purchases. It applies the payment and any coupons or offers in a single transaction from the mobile device. The Kohl’s Pay app is available for iOS and Android devices.

• JPMorgan Chase & Co. is beginning to pull its brand off of nearly 2,600 cash dispensers in Walgreens and Duane Reade drugstores and some other retail locations in nine states as a result of the April sale of the machines to ATM network operator Cardtronics Inc., Reuters reported; Cardtronics said it is talking with other financial institutions about putting their brands on the ATMs.

• Processor Global Payments Inc. reported a profit of $92.5 million in the first quarter ending Aug. 31, compared with $93 million in the same quarter a year ago. Overall revenue increased to $939.5 million for the quarter, a 25.5% increase from $748.8 million last year. Growth at Heartland Payment Systems, which Global Payments bought earlier this year, was a big contributor, Global Payments said.

• Tablet-based point-of-sale specialist Revel Systems launched RevelGuard, a hardware device that monitors a merchant’s network condition. The product enables Revel’s support staff to have secure, remote access to manage certain aspects of the POS system and to fix various hardware issues.

• Apple Inc. launched Apple Pay in Russia, the mobile-payment service’s 10th country, with partners Sberbank and MasterCard Inc., Reuters reported.

• Payments-service provider BillingTree announced a majority recapitalization led by Parthenon Capital Partners.

• UATP, a processor for airline transactions, has integrated with payment gateway Planet Payment to offer air carriers a wider array of alternative-payment options

• BlackLine Advisory Group, a consulting firm specializing in financial services, said Courtney Roger joined the firm as an advisor.