Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

A platform to help ensure payments are made to the proper entity is preparing for a May debut. Dubbed Phixius, the Nacha-developed platform will provide a way to enable the secure sharing of payment-related information. That’s important because the platform, announced this week, could save businesses time in vetting new …

MoneyGram International Inc. is proving adept at attracting diverse investors. Cash-management provider The Brink’s Co. announced Thursday that it has invested $9 million in MoneyGram stock for a 4.95% stake in the company. The Brink’s investment comes in the wake of the $50 million Ripple Labs Inc., developer of the …

A $57 million renovation at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Fla., the spring-training home of the New York Mets recently renamed from First Data Field, won’t be completed by Monday when pitchers and catchers report for preseason workouts, a local newspaper reported. St. Lucie County, which owns the stadium, now hopes …

Surcharges on credit card transactions could pick up momentum now that only four states effectively ban the practice, a panel of experts indicated Wednesday at a merchant-acquiring trade show. That momentum may benefit not only merchants wary of card-acceptance costs but also merchant-service providers that focus on surcharging as a …

The hotly competitive arena of integrated payments has prompted PointOS, a hospitality software developer, to register as an independent sales organization to gain better control over payment services it offers. The company, which serves customers, announced its ISO registration this week and calls its service PointOS Payments. “We became an …

Bitcoin ATM deployer Bitcoin Depot said its network now includes more than 500 machines worldwide, with more than 100 in the Atlanta area. The company projects it will have more than 1,000 Bitcoin ATMS by the end of 2020.Lael Brainard, a Federal Reserve Board governor, said in a Wednesday speech that the Fed, …

Cross-border payments specialist WorldRemit Corp. says a partnership with Alipay, a major Chinese mobile-payment service, will enable consumers to make international remittances to the Alipay mobile app. Announced Wednesday, the service harbors significant potential. Approximately 35 million Chinese citizens live abroad, and they sent home an estimated $67 billion in 2018, …

Australian financial regulators might intervene to stop banks from automatically routing contactless debit card payments to the Visa and Mastercard networks and instead give merchants the option of using the country’s EFTPOS network, Reuters reported.RevSpring Financial Services, a provider of collections-support services for health-care firms and other companies, debuted eVokePay, a payment …

Six months after closing on its $22 billion acquisition of First Data Corp., Fiserv Inc. on Tuesday dropped some tantalizing hints about early benefits the deal has generated for the combined company. First Data’s Clover app-based platform for merchant checkouts, for example, saw its gross payment volume grow fully 40% …

Visa Inc. reportedly is planning interchange rate changes that could raise merchants’ acceptance costs for card-not-present transactions but lower costs in some other categories, including purchases at big grocery-store chains. Citing a Visa document circulating among the network’s client banks, the Bloomberg news service reported Tuesday that interchange for a …

One often overlooked market for mobile payments is sports betting, and now some payments providers are wagering that the segment is about to get hot with the ongoing rollout of 5G mobile-network connectivity. “We would urge sports-betting operators to be ready for the increased traffic on their platforms. It’s a …

Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP has taken an approximately 9% stake in prepaid card and banking services provider Green Dot Corp., according to a regulatory filing. Green Dot issued a statement saying it “welcomes transparent, constructive feedback regarding the common goal of enhancing long-term shareholder value.” In the wake of a big …

The mega mergers aren’t over yet. In a global move with potentially major implications for the U.S. payments market, Ingenico Group S.A. said it has agreed to be acquired by Worldline S.A. for cash and stock consideration totaling approximately $8.6 billion. The transaction, expected to close in the third quarter, …

The value of payments on the automated clearing house network grew by more than $1 trillion in 2019 for the seventh straight year and transactions increased by more than 1 billion for the fifth consecutive year, ACH governing body Nacha reported Monday. Total payments came to 24.7 billion transactions, up …

Cornerstone Payment Systems announced the acquisition of Move Your Mountain, a crowd-funding platform. Terms were not disclosed.Digital cross-border payments provider Remitly Inc. launched Passbook by Remitly, a mobile app aimed at immigrants in the United States that features a no-fee account from Sunrise Banks N.A. and real-time transfers via Visa Inc.’s Visa Direct …

A new rule took effect this week in Canada that is expected to enable more debit card transactions by opening up venues such as buses, trains, parking meters, and vending machines for acceptance.  The regulation, called Rule E5, comes from Payments Canada, the country’s clearing-and-settlement operator, and amends a prior …

Small businesses using Square Inc. will be able to use turnkey UPS shipping services integrated into Square Online Store, the acquirer’s e-commerce platform, UPS announced. The Square-UPS deal includes special shipping rates that could be up to 55% off UPS daily rates.Amazon.com Inc. reported it now has more than 150 million Prime members …

Improved online payments, tokenization, and contactless transactions all gained ground in 2019’s last three months for Visa Inc. as the network’s payment volume grew 8% year-over-year. Visa reported total U.S. payment volume of $1.06 trillion in its first quarter of fiscal 2020 ended Dec. 31, a 7.8% increase from $980 …

How will 2019 be remembered for data breaches? Not well. The number of U.S. data breaches tracked by the Identity Theft Resource Center increased to 1,473, a 17% increase from 1,257 in 2018. Drilling into the payments sector, the increase was larger, according to a newly released report from the …

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on Financial Technology held a hearing Thursday morning titled “Is Cash Still King? Reviewing the Rise of Mobile Payments.” Witnesses included representatives from PayPal, the U.S. Faster Payments Council, the Brookings Institute, Consumer Reports, and a New York City non-profit dedicated to financial …