Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

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 …

Urban FT Group Inc. announced the acquisition of CFC Technology Group LLC, a remote deposit capture provider, a move Urban FT says will boost its presence among smaller financial institutions. Terms were not disclosed. New York City-based Urban FT says CFC works with more than 800 institutions and thousands of …

Online marketplace eBay Inc. saw further growth on its new, post-PayPal managed-payments platform in the second quarter despite a decline in gross merchandise volume. San Jose, Calif.-based eBay on Wednesday said the platform accounted for more than $270 million in GMV in the June-ending quarter, up 24% from the first …

Fiserv Inc.’s $22 billion acquisition of First Data Corp. cleared a U.S. Department of Justice review, the company said Thursday. In April, the Justice Department asked for more information and documents related to the deal, but, according to a Fiserv filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the DoJ attached no conditions …

Add LG Pay to the multitude of U.S. mobile-payment options. LG Electronics USA announced Tuesday the mobile-payment service is available on select LG smart phones. The move comes a year later than LG initially said it would. LG Electronics Inc., the parent company of LG Electronics USA, introduced LG Pay …

Visa Inc. said Wednesday it has acquired Payworks GmbH, a Munich-based developer of cloud-based point-of-sale payment-gateway software. Visa intends to integrate Payworks’ technology with that of another Visa property, CyberSource, and offer the combined product to merchants and acquirers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The combined offering will …

Bank of America Corp. says it has 8 million active users of the bank-backed Zelle person-to-person payment service and that it handled 69 million Zelle transactions in the second quarter, nearly double the 35.2 million transactions a year earlier. BofA had 5.4 million Zelle users in the 2019 first quarter. …

Facebook Inc.’s Calibra wallet will generate revenue for its parent by stimulating incremental advertising but the proposed Libra cryptocurrency will also work with competing wallet apps, the company’s point man for Calibra said Tuesday. David Marcus, head of Calibra for the huge social network, said in prepared remarks that the new …

PayPal Holdings Inc. says its Xoom remittance service now covers 32 markets in Europe, an expansion that boosts Xoom’s presence to more than 130 international markets. Xoom, which PayPal bought in 2015, had a major expansion in 2018 when it picked up 60 countries in a deal with Euronext Worldwide …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. reported its merchant-acquiring subsidiary processed $371.6 billion in payments in the second quarter, a 12% increase from a year earlier. On the issuing side, the massive banking firm reported $281.5 billion in second-quarter credit and debit card sales volume, up 10%. Wells Fargo & Co. reported …

Fraud-control executives and researchers predicted card-not-present fraud would boom when the U.S. converted to EMV chip cards a few years ago, and, sure enough, it did. But if the experiences of other countries that adopted EMV before the U.S. are any guide, Americans can take relief in that CNP fraud …

The Litecoin Foundation said the Miami Dolphins National Football League team named Litecoin its official cryptocurrency. The digital currency will be accepted for payment for ticket purchases in the team’s 50/50 raffle. Bitcoin also may be used for these ticket purchases. Citigroup Inc. reported $93.2 billion in second-quarter purchase volume …