Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Mastercard Inc. has become the first payment card network to join the NoMoreRansom initiative sponsored by Europol, a support-services organization for law-enforcement agencies in the European Union. Europol says the 3-year-old NoMoreRansom public-private partnership project has helped 200,000 ransomware victims recover their computer files free of charge and has prevented …

Fiserv Inc. formally announced the closing of its $22-billion, all-stock acquisition of processing giant First Data Corp.MagTek Inc. said its DynaPro Go PIN pad now offers Bluetooth LE connectivity. The company also launched its iDynamo 6 mobile card reader that works with iOS, Android, and Windows operating systems.Utah’s Deer Valley Resort said it detected malware on May …

Shareholders of payment processor Worldpay Inc. this week voted overwhelmingly in favor of the company’s planned merger with Fidelity National Information Services Inc., which is expected to close in the third quarter.The Bancorp Inc., owner of The Bancorp Bank, a major prepaid card issuer, reported gross dollar volume on the bank’s prepaid cards …

In what may be the biggest anticlimax in their careers, employees at First Data Corp. will walk into their offices Monday morning as employees of Fiserv Inc. And if Fiserv chief executive Jeffery Yabuki’s ambitions prove fruitful, the combined company will play a leading role in fending off nonbanks like …

Cloud-based point-of-sale system provider Revel Systems Inc. launched the Revel Solution Partner program in an effort to get more merchants using its POS systems. Announced Thursday, the program sees qualified resellers managing the complete sales process for Revel Essentials, the San Francisco-based company’s POS system for small and mid-size businesses. …

First Data Corp. and Fiserv Inc. expect to close Monday on Fiserv’s $22-billion acquisition of First Data. The deal, announced in January, has received final required regulatory approvals and non-objections, First Data said. First Data announced $2.49 billion in revenue for the second quarter, up 2% year-over-year.A group of Congressional Democrats, including presidential …

PayPal Holdings Inc.’s payments juggernaut shows no signs of weakening, but the company has found its latest product integrations bedeviled by slowdowns, forcing it to postpone some expected revenue. One such integration with bill-payment specialist Paymentus Corp. is a crucial one because it will allow PayPal to enter an enormous, …

Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says his massive social-networking company is using an open process to get its proposed Libra cryptocurrency into the market and won’t roll it out until all concerns are addressed. Zuckerberg fielded questions about the controversial Libra project at the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call …

Discover Financial Services’ Payment Services unit reported its transaction volume grew 8% year-over-year to $61.8 billion, a result that included 7% growth for its Pulse electronic funds transfer network. Overall, total Discover revenue net of interest expense increased 10% to $2.85 billion, while net income jumped 13% to $753 million.In related …

Visa Inc.’s net income jumped by a third in the quarter ended June 30, a period when the leading payment card network’s global transaction volume rose nearly 12% and the company completed or announced several acquisitions to broaden its franchise. Visa chairman and chief executive Alfred F. Kelly Jr. told …

The Zelle peer-to-peer payments network is starting to click for the smaller, everyday transfers it was designed to handle. Early Warning Services LLC, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based banking-technology company that runs the 2-year-old network, reported on Tuesday that Zelle handled $44 billion in volume in the second quarter on 171 million …

Square Inc. is getting into the photography business as yet another way to add auxiliary services beyond payments designed to attract and retain merchants. The new service, dubbed Square Photo Studio, enables merchants, or sellers in Square’s lingo, to ship products to a Square studio in Brooklyn, N.Y., where they …

Whether most consumers will ultimately use Alexa or Siri or some other voice-activated device to make purchases may depend crucially on how much money is at risk.  As it turns out, slightly more than half of U.S. consumers would be comfortable using the technology to pay for relatively small-ticket goods …

PAX Technology Inc. said its S920 mobile point-of-sale device received certification from Verizon and AT&T.U.S. truck fleets are cutting their total fuel expenses by approximately 7% via loyalty programs offered on fuel cards, according to researcher SpendEdge. This benefit in turn is driving growth in the fuel card market, the research firm …

A hearing is set for today on two bills pending in the Massachusetts Legislature that would repeal the state’s decades-old ban on cashless stores. If passed, the bipartisan legislation, which is drawing fire from the ATM industry, would put Massachusetts at odds with efforts this year in a number of …

Equifax Inc., which in 2017 sustained a data breach that potentially exposed sensitive information related to 148 million files, on Monday announced what that massive intrusion will cost the company. The Atlanta-based credit-reporting agency said it will pay $671 million as part of an agreement to settle multidistrict class-action litigation …

Juniper Research Ltd. released a report on digital wallets in North America and Europe that says purchase volume with them will increase 40% in 2019.The United States is the country from which the most people are traveling overseas, followed by Mainland China and Germany, according to Mastercard Inc.’s Global Destination Cities Index.MoneyGram International …

American Express Co. on Friday reported worldwide discount revenue of $6.58 billion for the quarter ended June 30, up 6% year-over-year. Discount revenue accounted for fully 61% of total revenue net of interest expense, which came to $10.84 billion, up 8%, the New York City-based card network reported. AmEx’s worldwide …

The Federal Trade Commission said payment processor Allied Wallet, its CEO and owner Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, and two company officers agreed to settle FTC charges that they assisted numerous scams by knowingly processing fraudulent transactions that took more than $110 million from consumers’ account.The two-day Amazon Prime Day event this week sold more than 175 …

Facebook Inc. and its proposed Libra cryptocurrency took a beating this week on Capitol Hill, but the outlook for the new coin—and its Calibra wallet—may be more nuanced than that reception would seem to indicate. The skepticism toward Libra was bipartisan, with Senators and Representatives of both major parties raking …