Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Square Inc. is rapidly growing into a heavyweight player in the hard-fought market for peer-to-peer payments. The San Francisco-based company had 15 million active users in December for its P2P product, Cash App, a number that doubled from December 2017, the San Francisco-based company disclosed on Wednesday. That’s still well …

Retailers, like many other businesses, have probably had their fill of fraud attempts. Unfortunately, criminals have not. Between May 1 and Dec. 31, 2018, Akamai Technologies detected more than 10 billion credential-stuffing attacks aimed at retailers, accounting for more than a third of all such attempts—28 billion—in that period. In …

The 7-year-old startup Affirm Inc. has already signed up more than 2,000 merchants to accept its instant-financing option, but on Wednesday it announced it had bagged the biggest one of all: Walmart Inc. In a move that extends Affirm to the physical point of sale in a major way, users …

CannaTrac, a cashless mobile-payment service for the cannabis industry, released an application programming interface for point-of-sale software developers. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon told investors the bank’s JPM Coin, a blockchain-based token now in test for intrabank corporate payments, one day could be offered to consumers, Bloomberg reported. …

For all the talk about financial-technology firms and non-bank processors encroaching on banks’ turf, acquiring banks still outdo the upstarts when it comes to having satisfied merchant customers, according to J.D. Power’s first in-depth study of the merchant-acquiring industry. The online study of 3,500 small businesses nationwide last October and …

SuiteRetail, a Wilmington, Del.-based point-of-sale software developer, completed integration of  Stripe Inc.’s merchant-processing services into its apps, giving merchants the ability to use Stripe for their in-store and online transactions. Merchants using SuiteRetail’s SuitePOS for NetSuite or Salesforce now can complete their online processor and store set-up for Stripe. The …

The global processor Worldpay Inc. is beating its own expectations in knitting together the assets combined in the huge merger of Vantiv Inc. and Worldpay plc and is looking to make more acquisitions this year, top executives said Tuesday. Speaking to stock analysts to discuss Cincinnati-based Worldpay’s fourth-quarter and full-year …

Hackers gained unauthorized access to credit or debit card data stored with software company CentralSquare Technologies and used for one-time water-bill payments made through the city of Pompano Beach, Fla.’s Web site from Aug. 30 to Dec. 6, 2018, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. Nearly 3,800 customers made one-time payments …

Puerto Rico-based payment processor Evertec Inc. suffered along with the rest of the island when hurricanes Irma and especially Maria swept through in September 2017 and destroyed homes, businesses, and the electrical grid, but now Evertec’s payment volumes are surging as the island recovers. Puerto Rican transaction volumes were up …

A bevy of fees levied by the two major card networks is offsetting much of the fee relief merchants receive from the 7-year-old Durbin Amendment, according to new findings from a payments-research firm that is studying the issue on behalf of the retail industry. While the Durbin caps on debit …

NCR Corp. announced it acquired BEC, said to be a leading provider in Colorado of point-of-sale technology for the hospitality industry. BEC, which accounts for 2,600 sites, has been an NCR reseller for 23 years. Terms were not announced. After years of unsuccessful attempts to win government approval to operate …

The federal court handling the long-running class-action litigation between merchants on one hand and big banks and Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. on the other announced on Friday it has granted “preliminary approval” to a settlement that could award between $5.54 billion and $6.24 billion to merchant plaintiffs. The parties …

PayPal Holdings Inc. introduced a so-called rainbow card for users of its Venmo peer-to-peer payments service. The colorful plastic, available for a limited time, is the latest version of a debit card PayPal launched last year to allow users to pay merchants with their Venmo balance. As with the original …

It was a rough 2018 for leading ATM network operator Cardtronics plc, but the company’s top management predicted Thursday that 2019 will be better. Houston-based Cardtronics early last year muddled through the end of its long-standing relationship with its biggest customer, 7-Eleven Inc., which is pulling down year-on-year comparisons. At …

Green Dot Corp.’s diversification from a pure prepaid card management company into banking and other financial-services niches is driving direct deposits into its card accounts and spurring revenue-generating payment volume, according to the company’s latest financial report. Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot said Wednesday that fourth-quarter purchase volume on its cards …

The use of chatbots in financial services is about to explode, if research released this week is any indication. Adoption will be such that the technology will save banks worldwide $7.3 billion in annual operating costs by 2023, compared to a projected $209 million this year, estimates Juniper Research in …

Apple Inc. and the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will begin issuing a joint credit card this spring, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new card will tie into the Apple Wallet. Apple’s brand already is on a credit card issued by Barclaycard. It is unknown what will happen to that …

Same-day automated clearing house transactions more than doubled in 2018 and the value of those payments increased 83% in the first full year of same-day ACH debit service, NACHA reported Tuesday. The same-day volumes helped the sprawling ACH network continue its growth streak, with total payments up nearly 7% and …

Sonarax, an ultrasonic-communications company, unveiled a new protocol for enabling devices, including ATMs and those capable of mobile payments, to communicate with one another. Israel-based Sonarax says its technology enables pairing of devices and data transfer on both encrypted and open channels using frequencies that are beyond human hearing capabilities. …

Payments provider North American Bancard Holdings LLC said it is integrating its capabilities with retail-management and point-of-sale software provider Vend. The joint service will be available to retailers through NAB’s resellers. Digital Debit Group, a unit of Qondado LLC, released a Quick Response code-based app for iOS and Android devices …