Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

In a bad week for cryptocurrency, a news report emerged late Thursday that PayPal Holdings Inc. skipped a key meeting of backers of Facebook Inc.’s Libra initiative. And, in the state of Ohio, officials on Wednesday suspended a pioneering site that accepted business taxes via Bitcoin. Twenty-seven of the 28 …

The Samsung Pay mobile wallet introduced a Mastercard-branded virtual prepaid card called Samsung Pay Cash, which is accepted at all locations that accept Mastercard and Samsung Pay transactions. The technology behind the card is provided by Netspend, a unit of Global Payments Inc. The move comes on the heels of Samsung …

Payments executives love to talk about the security of paying with a smart phone, but that message still hasn’t gotten through to consumers, according to new survey findings from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The good news for mobile-payments proponents is that Pew found more than half, 56%, of its respondents …

Adoption of mobile-payment apps in the United States has been tepid, so the so-called “Pays”—Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay—have sought new features to spike consumer interest. The latest gambit comes from Samsung Pay, which on Thursday announced an integration that will allow U.S. users to send payments to …

C&H Financial Services Inc. said it merged with Mann Merchant Processing Systems LLC to expand its East Coast operations and grow. The combined company will use the C&H brand. Terms were not disclosed.Merchant acquirer Elavon Inc., a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, acquired Gothenburg, Sweden-based payments provider Payius AB. Payius has been an …

Investors in payment stocks experienced something in September they don’t have to suffer through very often—two straight months of negative returns. A basket of 27 transaction-processor stocks tracked by Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. posted a negative mean return of 3.89% in September, considerably worse than three major stock-market indexes. …

A report Wednesday that at least some members of the consortium backing Facebook Inc.’s Libra cryptocurrency project—including Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc.—are having second thoughts has drawn fire from the top Facebook executive in charge of the project. “The tone of some of this reporting suggests angst, etc….I can tell …

Global Payments Inc. may be on the hook for more than $135 million following a jury verdict in a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by an independent sales organization against the Atlanta-based processor. A jury in the Superior Court of DeKalb County in Georgia found that Global Payments breached parts of its …

Drury Hotels Co., which in May disclosed a data breach involving reservations made through some third-party online booking sites, now says the breach involved transactions from Dec. 28, 2017, to June 2 of this year, about two-and-a-half months longer than the originally stated timeline. Drury said “unauthorized access” occurred on …

The Shanghai-based UnionPay International payment network reported Monday that it now has 28 million accepting merchants outside of China and 120 million cards issued by non-mainland financial institutions since it launched its global business in 2004. But while UnionPay International now has a presence in 176 countries, with Chile and …

AeroPay, the mobile-payments service from Aero Payments LLC, debuted a 1% cash-back rewards program for its users. AeroPay, which uses a connection to the automated clearing house network for its transactions via Dwolla Inc., says consumers using its iOS or Android app can earn unlimited 1% cash-back rewards. The payout …

The Federal Reserve, which is taking industry comments on its upcoming FedNow real-time payments network until Nov. 7, said common questions so far involve pricing and the scope of the service. The first question can’t be answered yet, and the second touches on services that will be designed by financial institutions building on top …

With The Clearing House Payments Co. operating a real-time payments network and the Federal Reserve planning one for no later than 2024, payments companies are looking at slices of the market for opportunities in instant money movement. And these niche plays aren’t just the province of the country’s biggest banks. …

The New York attorney general is suing Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. for allegedly violating the state’s data-breach notification act by failing to notify nearly 20,000 customers that their Dunkin’ accounts had been compromised in a series of brute force cyberattacks beginning in 2015. Hackers also gained unauthorized access to more than 300,000 accounts in …

Tech behemoths Google, Amazon, and Apple, goliath retailers Walmart and Target, and PayPal, all support the Federal Reserve providing faster payments via its FedNow service, slated for introduction by 2024. Each of them, however, would howl in protest if Washington proposed competing with their business or helping would-be competitors. Fearing The Clearing …

The recently completed acquisition of Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) by Global Payments Inc. is “the best of the bunch” among the three megamergers in the payment-processing industry this year, investment research firm Morningstar Inc. says in a new report. The Global-TSYS deal “has the most capacity to reduce costs …

The Fed has amassed enormous—in practice, unaccountable—power, and taken roles natural to government and to the private sector. It’s the central bank, paramount financial-system regulator, and a payments operator. It shouldn’t, however, undertake activities better and naturally performed in the private sphere.  The latest example: On its own prerogative, the …

Fiserv Inc.’s acquisition of First Data Corp. this year was the first of a trio of big mergers that has made 2019 the year of the megadeals in payments. On Thursday, a key Fiserv executive close to the action explained how the $22-billion acquisition served as the capstone to a …

Policymakers have much work ahead when reviewing cryptocurrencies like the proposed Libra, a European regulator said Wednesday. In related news, a cryptocurrency payment plugin debuts for WordPress. The Libra cryptocurrency project led by Facebook Inc. has “undoubtedly been a wake-up call for central banks and policymakers,” said Benoit Coeure, a …

American Express Co. posted an online guide for consumers about contactless cards. Beginning in July of 2019, all newly issued AmEx consumer and small-business cards are contactless-enabled, and starting next month all newly issued corporate cards will be contactless-enabled.P97 Networks, a provider of mobile payments and rewards programs for petroleum retailers, …