Consumer use of mobile payments has taken a step back, according to new research from Auriemma Consulting Group. The New York City-based firm found that mobile-payments usage is down 5 percentage points to 25% of consumers surveyed from 30% a year ago. And that decline is expected to continue into …

The Western Union Co. this week positioned itself to fend off competition from peer-to-peer payment services by partnering with Mastercard Inc. to integrate Mastercard Send into its money-transfer service. The service, which is expected to be available in only the United States starting in early 2018, will allow consumers to …

Contactless payments got a big boost Wednesday when the New York City area’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved a $539.5 million contract with San Diego-based Cubic Transportation Systems to install a near-field communication-based payment system across all MTA transit and commuter-rail systems that includes open-loop payments. The deal means MTA riders …

Facebook Inc. has joined Visa Inc.’s Digital Enablement Program, giving the social-networking giant access to tokenization services globally. First Data Corp. said it will add UnionPay International acceptance to its merchant network, enabling UnionPay cardholders traveling as tourists in the United States to use their cards in stores and online. Eventually, …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is making a big move into the world of independent software vendors and payment facilitators with a planned acquisition of WePay Inc. that the nation’s largest bank announced late Tuesday. Redwood City, Calif.-based WePay develops payments-related application programming interfaces (APIs) for software developers to put into …

The number of U.S. merchants that accept EMV chip cards at the point of sale is increasing rapidly, according to recent figures from Visa Inc.,  but it’s going to take some work by merchant acquirers and payment card networks to convince the holdouts to convert. Executives from two of those …

NCR Corp. is entering the fray to get payment-processing deals with micromerchants. The Duluth, Ga.-based point-of-sale technology company this week launched Ring Up by NCR Silver, a POS service specifically designed for merchants with less than $100,000 in annual revenue. The service uses a magnetic stripe and EMV-compatible Bluetooth reader …

EMV chip card payments at the U.S. point of sale have been around, officially at least, for two years now, but consumers still perceive them as slow, and many merchants still don’t accept chip cards, according to a poll of consumers and retailers by merchant processor Cayan. The time to …

Europe’s new payments regulation promises much, including free transactions. But do banks need to be forced to do what’s in the best interests of customers and shareholders? The European Union’s revised payment-services directive (PSD2) changes rules governing payments and is intended to, and inevitably will, impact the roles and economics …

The foundational technology for contactless credit cards has existed for some time, but we haven’t seen them adopted en masse yet, at least not Stateside. Much of that reluctance has to do with perceived obstacles or assumptions—perceptions that may or may not be entirely accurate. Following are objective responses to …