Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

ZmBIZI LLC released its Z2 smart phone that accepts tap-and-pay transactions without requiring an external POS terminal. The $550 smart phone was part of a Visa Tap to Phone test earlier this year and is expected to have full commercial availability in early 2022.Visa Inc.’s U.S. Spending Momentum Index fell for the second consecutive month, …

As part of its strategy to automate payouts for health-care and property-and-casualty carriers, Echo Health Inc., a provider of payment technology to insurance carriers, is partnering with KyckGlobal Inc. to enable claimants to receive payments digitally through PayPal, Venmo, push to card through Visa Direct, and the automated clearing house. …

Shop Bonsai Inc., which provides in-app checkout technology under the Bonsai moniker, said it and buy now, pay later specialist Afterpay are making it easier for consumers to shop on an online publisher’s site without leaving the site. Announced Wednesday, the arrangement enables Bonsai shoppers to potentially reduce the checkout …

Insurer Alliance Global Corporate & Specialty issued a report detailing how companies can protect their systems from an epidemic of ransomware attacks. Such attacks increased 62% in the first half 2021, year-over-year, following a 20% rise for all of 2020, according to FBI statistics cited by Alliance.Online gifting platform SmartGift said it is …

Despite consumers’ expectation that checkout during an e-commerce purchase should be fast and instinctive, most online merchants still have checkout procedures that add unnecessary friction, says a survey from online-payments powerhouse Stripe Inc. The report, released Tuesday, reveals that 96% of 200 North American e-commerce merchants surveyed had committed at …

NFC tags, a technology commonly used to enable contactless payments through a mobile device at the pump and at vending machines, are making their way to the physical point-of-sale. Computop, a Bamberg, Germany-based provider of omnichannel and fraud-prevention solutions, announced on Tuesday Computop Close-by, a payment solution that uses NFC …

As trends such as payment facilitation and integrated payments continue to unfold, at least some payments providers are giving more thought to long-held branding strategies. The latest example is that of FortisPay, which on Tuesday announced it is dropping the “Pay” and is now in the market simply as Fortis. …

Cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay Inc. said it completed an integration with Wix, an e-commerce platform, to enable BitPay’s Bitcoin and crypto payment processing as a payment option.Splitit USA Inc. said Discover cardholders can use the installment payments with their cards. Diners Club International and other alliance cards can be used, too. Splitit uses …

The Clearing House, EBA Clearing, a provider of pan-European payment-infrastructure technology, and financial-messaging specialist SWIFT have completed a proof-of-concept aimed at introducing faster cross-border payments than are currently available. The three member-owned companies announced Monday they have finished a project to synchronize cross-border payments occurring in one instant-payment system with …

Despite a temporary setback at the start of the pandemic, merchant acquiring is getting back on a growth track that will see revenue expand at an 11.3% annual clip through 2025, nearly equaling the 11.8% rate chalked up from 2015 to 2019, according to a report and forecast released Monday …

Payments provider Nuvei Corp. said it will offer its U.S. merchant clients access to Visa Direct, Visa Inc.’s real-time push-payment network, for near real-time payouts.Ecrid Inc., a startup credit bureau that includes a bill-payment capability, announced it has filed for an initial public offering expected to raise $20 million.Payments provider Usio Inc. said the …

Subaru Park, home of major league soccer’s Philadelphia Union, is the latest sports stadium to go entirely cashless. The team announced Thursday it was deploying more than 130 Clover point-of-sale devices from Fiserv Inc. to enable contactless purchases at concession stands and premium seating areas in the stadium. Like many professional …

Bakkt, a digital-asset marketplace, said its users can now load their Bakkt Visa debit cards into Google Pay and use the crypto-backed cards to make online and in-store payments where Google Pay is accepted. The consumer’s digital asset, such as Bitcoin, will be converted to fiat currency for these payments. …

A September survey of 850 information-technology professionals around the world by security-software provider Hornetsecurity Group found more than 9% saying their organization had paid a ransom to recover data after a ransomware attack. Some 15.2% said their organizations don’t perform regular data backups.Parkmobile LLC, whose mobile app enables reservations and payment for …

An increase in the limit on what contactless cardholders in the United Kingdom can spend before they are required to authenticate themselves is raising questions about whether the new mandate will prompt consumers to shun their cards in favor of mobile wallets, which have no per transaction limit. The theory is …

One of the first moves to bring a payment system not controlled by Apple Inc. to Apple’s App Store emerged Thursday and follows a landmark federal-court ruling last month. Paddle Ltd., a London-based payments provider, said it will begin offering the alternative Dec. 7, in line with the terms of …

Purchase scams, in which consumers pay for goods that never arrive, was the number-one fraud type in the second quarter in terms of card-fraud attempts, beating out social-engineering frauds, according to fraud-prevention firm Feedzai. The top city for overall fraud attempts was Las Vegas, with fraud up 411% in the quarter …

Mega-retailer Target Corp. says consumers can now use buy now, pay later options from Sezzle Inc. and Affirm Inc. Though Target doesn’t say why it is offering two BNPL options, it distinguishes Affirm, which offers a point-of-sale loan that charges interest, as best for purchases of more than $100. Sezzle, …

Stronger authentication for voice-activated payments, as well as streamlined identity checks and support for a wider array of authentication technologies for online payments generally, are included in the latest version of EMVCo’s 3-D Secure standard, the global payments-standards body said Wednesday. EMVCo said its new update, version 2.3, responds to …