• Payments Canada, which owns and operates that nation’s payment clearing and settlement infrastructure, has hired consulting firm Accenture to advise it on a multiyear program called Modernization, which is aimed at creating a faster-payments regime.
• Payments-solutions provider ACI Worldwide said its network of more than 130 payment-service providers serving more than 56,000 merchants can now accept Bitcoin as a result of an agreement with Payment21.com, said to be the first regulated Bitcoin payment processor.
• Data-security provider ControlScan, along with the Merchant Acquirers’ Committee, released the 2017 Acquirer PCI and Security Survey, which found that 25% of respondents said their PCI compliance approach caused attrition among their merchants.
• To meet customers’ demands for convenience on cross-border transactions, e-commerce clothing merchants RoseWholesale, DressLily, Nastydress, and Trendsgal have adopted so-called local-payment strategies.
• The U.S. Payments Forum issued a white paper reviewing experiences from other countries in mitigating fraud in online and mobile channels.
• The ATM Industry Association published new best practices for ATM cabinet security and physical key management.
• Piedmont Payment Services LLC has added three business-development executives as part of a drive to increase awareness of its billing solutions for the voluntary-benefits industry. The three are Michael Naumann, Matt Ginter, and Jami Augustine.
• American Express Co. hired Andy Nicholas, a Citigroup Inc. veteran, as vice president and general manager of its international Global Business Development unit, and Ken Sebastian, a former Visa Inc. executive, as vice president of its U.S. Global Business Development unit.