Global shipments of chip cards surpassed 2.1 billion in 2016, a 4% increase from 2015, says the Smart Payment Association. “Following significant EMV rollout programs in the United States and China, 2016 saw shipment volumes begin to normalize to reflect growing market maturity in most major global markets,” said Sylvie …

• MasterCard Inc. is mulling an application to become a licensed payment service provider in China, a massive payments market dominated by state-owned China UnionPay, according to Reuters. • agreement with Visa Inc. that includes promotion of Visa cards and a new point-of-sale thrust for PayPal. Visa was trading at …

Digital-currency specialist Circle Internet Financial Ltd. is expanding into China following a $60 million investment from a syndicate of investors. This follows a $50 million funding round raised last year by the Boston-based company. Circle enables users to send and receive funds instantly at no charge using blockchain technology. A …

Just as Visa Inc. prepares to swallow up the 38-country Visa Europe system, at least one market researcher has released a report expressing some doubt about how long Visa and its bank card rival, MasterCard Inc., will be able to maintain their share of card-accepting merchants around the world. On …

Students from outside the United States are flooding the country to attend colleges, universities, even secondary schools, and that presents a payments problem for them and their families. Wire transfers, the typical way for foreigners to pay tuition and other fees, are cumbersome and expensive. Enter peerTransfer Corp., a 4-year-old …

Financial and marketing services company Mozido Inc. now is serving China through its acquisition of PayEase Corp., a China-based payment processor. Announced today, the acquisition makes Austin, Texas-based Mozido the owner of one of 22 licensed payment-processing companies in China. PayEase, which is headquarter in Beijing, provides in-app mobile payments, …

Citing “relative stability” across key business metrics, such as cross-border volume, Visa Inc. late Tuesday reported March-quarter increases of 10% year-over-year in both net revenue ($8.8 billion) and net income ($4.7 billion). Driven by stable consumer spending, dollar volume grew 8%, while total cross-border dollar volume grew 16% and processed …

The Merchants Payments Coalition released a 30-second TV ad that says the Credit Card Competition Act, a measure that would stipulate merchants have credit card routing choices, would prohibit China’s credit card network UnionPay from processing U.S. credit card transactions. Currently, no regulation prohibits that the MPC says. The CCCA, if passed, would …

FIS Inc. said its SecurLock service, working with artificial-intelligence technology from the fintech Stratyfy, is set to increase the volume of card transactions accurately identified as fraudulent, allowing clients to stop the transactions before they are consummated. FIS said the technology “was able to deliver a significant improvement of accurately identified …

Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, recently testified in Congress that China has cyber-penetrated the United States and that its embedded cyber weapons can be unleashed on the day hostilities break out. This is a sobering thought. Our entire life is cyber-managed: the way we distribute power, water, gas; …