USAT Lands Contactless Vending Contract and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/21/18

Pepsi-Cola of the Hudson Valley reached an agreement with USA Technologies Inc. to install contactless-payment capability on 300 vending machines and to upgrade payment devices on another 1,000 machines already linked to USAT’s ePort Connect Service.
Merchant processor Square Inc. agreed to lease an entire 356,000-square-foot building in Oakland, Calif., where it eventually will have about 2,000 employees, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Square will remain headquartered in San Francisco, where it expanded earlier this year.
Caribou Coffee Co. reported that customer payment card numbers and data may have been exposed as a result of a data breach involving point-of-sale systems at 265 company-owned stores, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. The number of customers affected was not disclosed. Caribou said it noticed “unusual activity on our network” on Nov. 28 and brought in data-security firm Mandiant to investigate.
Consumers spent 18.3% more on e-commerce channels in the period between Nov. 1 and Dec. 19 than in the same period a year ago, according to the Mastercard SpendingPulse. Cyber Monday sales alone were up more than 29%.
OpenNode Inc., a Bitcoin startup looking to process merchant transactions using the Lightning network, raised $1.25 million in seed funding from Draper Associates.
WEX Inc., a specialist in fleet-fueling payments, appointed former American Express Co. executive Susan Sobbott to its board of directors.

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