Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

While most North American payments fraud is related to identity and organized crime, one area—terrorism—stands out in this region compared to other developed markets. Eight percent of the 154 criminals cases reviewed by information-security firm Terbium Labs in its “The Next Generation of Criminal Financing: How Payment Fraud Funds Transnational …

Installment lending at the point of sale has drawn both startups and established companies, including banks, in recent years, but who among consumers finds that offer most attractive? The answer, according to New York City-based Auriemma Research, is consumers who pay with debit cards exclusively or say they prefer to. …

EBay Inc. announced new payments application programming interfaces for developers, including a Finances API, an Account API, and a Fulfillment API. The new APIs are designed for the online marketplace’s new managed-payments program, in which the company has taken over payments processing from long-time provider and former subsidiary PayPal Holdings …

NLS Equipment Finance thinks so. NLS Equipment is a new company, launching just this month, that offers both traditional and new leasing opportunities all designed to encourage ISOs to give leasing another try. These include: a special bonus program running through June 15; a Zero Payment Recourse program for qualified …

In a move to expand its tokenization services, Visa Inc. announced Tuesday that it has a deal to buy the token and smart-ticketing businesses of Rambus Inc., a Silicon Valley chip and software provider. The purchase price is $75 million in cash, according to a regulatory filing from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based …

Independent sales organization Pineapple Payments announced it acquired rival Card Champ. Both ISOs are based in Pittsburgh. Terms were not disclosed. Diebold Nixdorf Inc. released the DN Series of ATMs. Diebold said 18 financial institutions in 13 nations are testing the machines. Payment Data Systems Inc. changed its name to …

Facebook Inc. has said it will turn over control of its Libra cryptocurrency initiative to a consortium of companies that will constitute the Libra Association. But one related property the massive social network will retain, albeit as an arm’s-length subsidiary, is its new Calibra unit, which will run Facebook’s own …

FCA USA LLC, the automaker behind Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram vehicles, will offer the Uconnect Market as part of its in-dash infotainment systems beginning later this year, the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based company announced Monday. The new service, which will deploy in the second half of the year as an …

Point-of-sale installment-loan provider Sezzle Inc. said its service is now available at “thousands” of online stores in Canada. SSI Group, a provider of payments-related software for the health-care industry, announced a capability that relies on machine learning to predict when providers will receive payments from payers. In related news, U.S. …

When we think about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the first image that comes to mind might be a chess-playing computer or a driverless car. In addition to such futuristic applications, these cutting-edge technologies are already changing and enhancing many aspects of our day-to-day lives, including how we make …

PayPal Holdings Inc. announced late Thursday that its chief operating officer William J. “Bill” Ready will leave by the end of 2019 after six years with the online-payments leader. The unexpected departure of its number 2 executive cast some uncertainty over San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal. In mid-morning trading, its stock …

American Cash Exchange Inc. said its Poni operation struck a deal with Euronet Worldwide Inc.’s Ria money-transfer unit that enables consumers in Mexico to withdraw cash from U.S.-originated remittances at nearly 50,000 Mexican ATMs without paying fees after they buy and register a Poni Cash Card, which costs 10 pesos …

A new analysis of 10 years’ worth of figures on data breaches reveals that California by far holds the dubious distinction of suffering the most breaches as well as leaking the most records. Meanwhile, a Florida city has agreed to pay hackers about $600,000 in Bitcoin to be released from …

While legislators and regulators focused much of their attention on the Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency this week, tariffs on Chinese-made goods re-emerged in Washington as a threat that could raise prices for merchants and merchant acquirers. The Electronic Transactions Association payments trade group filed comments with the Office of the United States …

Shopify Inc. late on Tuesday announced a slew of services aimed at significantly broadening the support the Ottawa, Ontario-based provider offers to small and mid-size merchants. Among these are new point-of-sale software, a fulfillment network, and new checkout-integrated subscription-payment support. The fulfillment network is a first-of-its-kind offering for Shopify, the company …

Online and mobile bill-payment provider Allied Payment Network announced what it says is a “first of its kind” real-time digital bill-payment technology. The company developed the product in collaboration with Finastra, a software provider to financial institutions. Payments provider International Bancard said it was named the official credit card processor …

EMV chip card payments made substantial gains in the U.S. last year, but the nation still lags most other regions in EMV penetration, according to new figures from payment card standards body EMVCo. Some 53.5% of general-purpose U.S. card-present transactions in 2018 were so-called chip-on-chip, meaning both the point-of-sale terminal …

Commercial Bank of California’s announcement Tuesday that Group ISO Inc. joined its wholesale independent sales organization program signals greater ambitions for the Irvine, Calif.-based bank. Group ISO will use CBC’s BIN sponsorship, a term for bank identification numbers, which is required for acquirers to send and receive transactions from card …

The Facebook-led announcement of the Libra cryptocurrency is evoking blowback both in the United States and overseas. House Financial Services Committee chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called for Facebook to halt the planned launch of Libra until Congress has had a chance to hold hearings on the cryptocurrency. Elsewhere, the governor …

An association of major payments and technology companies will launch a blockchain-based digital currency called Libra some time in the first half of next year, according to an official announcement on Tuesday. The new initiative, some details about which have leaked in recent days, has the backing of Facebook Inc. …