2019 saw three of the biggest combinations in the history of the electronic payment business. The deals closed months ago. What happens now? Gotten over merger shock yet? Well, fasten your seat belt. The effects from last year’s trio of mega-combinations are likely to ripple through the payments industry for …

The Federal Trade Commission once again is looking into debit card transaction routing, and the focus is mostly on online payments. Here we go again: federal regulators are probing the seemingly arcane issue of how debit card transactions are routed. Anybody care for some caffeine? Abstruse as it may seem, …

Just as we were preparing to send this issue to press, news came about an interesting effort in Germany to steal a march on developing a checkout-free store. An outfit called VR Payment has created a service called payfree that uses radio-frequency identification technology to let stores scan tags on …

Payment-related fraud continues to diversify as EMV chip cards make counterfeit fraud at the point of sale far harder to commit. For example, the FBI last September said cumulative global losses, as reported to the bureau, from business email compromises and other email fraud totaled $26.2 billion from June 2016 to …

Cash App may be turning into the product that ate Square Inc. The company on Wednesday reported a big fourth quarter for the 4-year-old product as officials pointed to a strong performance overall for the full year. “2019 was a very good year for us,” Square chief executive Jack Dorsey …

The release date for the Federal Reserve’s planned FedNow real-time payments service is still three or four years off, but more details about its features will be released in the coming months, according to a Federal Reserve official. “This year we do plan to make an announcement based on … …

Wire-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. said transaction volume from its MoneyGram Online service grew 39% year-over-year in the fourth quarter; the company reported a net loss of $11.9 million compared with a loss of $12.5 million in 2018’s fourth quarter.Former Fit Pay Inc. shareholders are suing Garmin International, alleging the company, known for its …

The controversial Libra cryptocurrency project gained a new member Friday with Shopify Inc.’s announcement it will join the Libra Association, the governing body for the fledgling venture. Shopify’s decision comes in the face of a string of eight high-profile defections from the association since October, including decisions by Mastercard Inc., …

FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, the big mutual-fund and asset-management firm, this week spun off Akoya LLC, a tech company that recently launched an account-access protection network. Akoya is now co-owned by FMR, The Clearing House Payments Co., and 11 of TCH’s member banks, a development expected …

As merchants and their technology partners continue to develop technology to ditch the familiar checkout, a German entrant on Monday demonstrated a system that would use radio-frequency identification to charge customers as they walk out with their goods. The system, dubbed “payfree,” involves an app that consumers would install in …