Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Bitcoin has had a bad year, but that isn’t stopping enthusiasts from launching new methods for consumers to buy, sell, and spend the digital currency. The latest introduction is a mobile wallet that allows users to send Bitcoin to contacts on their phone, and receive the currency from others, through …

E-commerce technology provider 3dcart said its merchants can now offer Bread, an online financing service for consumer purchases, to their shoppers. Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said consumers can redeem rewards points instantly at the pump at approximately 13,400 Shell stations nationwide through a new agreement between FIS and …

Big banks generally aren’t too thrilled about the Federal Reserve taking a direct operational role in a U.S. real-time payment system, but smaller banks and credit unions as well as some big companies support the idea. The Fed’s two-month comment period on its proposed Real Time Gross Settlement service closed …

With the onset of digital wallets, observers of the payments scene might expect consumer demand for cash to wither, and with it the population of ATMs. It turns out the ATM count worldwide did hit its zenith last year, according to research released this week, but the reason is a …

Atom Tickets released a skill for Amazon Alexa, the retailer’s voice-assistant technology. Users can learn what movies are playing nearby and buy tickets using voice commands. The skill is integrated with Amazon Pay. Extend, a digital distribution platform for credit cards, registered with the Visa Ready program for business solutions, …

Oversight of payment-processing software will change under detailed plans announced by the PCI Security Standards Council. In related news, the EMVCo standards body announced an update to its 3-D Secure standard for protecting card-not-present transactions. In a Friday blog post, the PCI Council said its pending PCI Secure Software Standard …

Technology provider Nxt-ID Inc. said its planned spinoff of its payment assets into an independent, publicly traded company has been delayed until the first quarter of 2019 owing to the company’s inability to come to terms with its primary lender, which holds security interests in the assets targeted for the …

In 2018, the acceptance of virtual cards, also known as v-cards, by small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) increased significantly as suppliers embraced the improved security and convenience of this digital payment method over paper checks. Still, making the leap to fully automated payments remained a challenge for most within this market segment. …

Banks and credit unions will face an uphill battle fighting account-application fraud in the next few years, according to a new report from Aite Group LLC. Boston-based Aite projects that financial institutions will spend $781 million in 2022 on services for thwarting credit card application fraud, up 40% from $557 …

Despite the vicissitudes of cryptocurrency, demand for blockchain developers is apparently exploding. The increase in job listings seeking those with experience in the distributed-ledger technology topped the growth rankings in LinkedIn’s 2018 “Emerging Jobs Report,” with 33 times more listings than last year, according to a Dec. 13 post from …

An affiliate of Elliott Management Corp., a hedge fund that is trying to acquire remote deposit capture software provider Mitek Systems Inc. through a portfolio company, plans to nominate seven director candidates at Mitek’s 2019 shareholder meeting, Mitek reported in a regulatory filing. The meeting date and location hasn’t been …

A number of U.S. payments providers have expanded overseas in recent years, and now more may have an incentive to do so if recent research showing robust growth in merchant acceptance is any indication. The number of physical stores or outlets accepting payment cards worldwide reached 69.2 million last year, …

All but two of 27 bank mobile apps examined in a new S&P Global Inc. study offer person-to-person payments and another bank will soon add the feature to its app. But less than a third of the apps support cardless ATM transactions. The study by New York City-based S&P Global’s …

The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with two defendants accused of laundering nearly $6 million in credit card charges through fraudulent merchant accounts. Lightspeed, developer of a cloud-based point-of-sale system, released Lightspeed Loyalty, a service that offers merchants a rewards program, automated marketing, customer data reporting, and, for restaurants, …

Core processors for financial institutions are starting to make their moves in voice-triggered consumer payments, and Jack Henry & Associates is looking to stake out an early lead in this nascent business. The Monett, Mo.-based company on Wednesday said its iPayQuickPay bill-pay service is integrated with Alexa smart speakers from …

The prognostications for 2019 are starting to roll in, and if at least one comes true, we’ll see business-to-business transactions driving the growth of faster-payment systems. And smart phones might actually gain some discernible traction at the point of sale. The predictions come from the big accounting and consulting firm …

Thales’s proposed all-cash acquisition of rival Gemalto received merger-control regulatory clearance by the European Commission. Effective immediately, the clearance is conditioned on Thales’s agreement to divest its general-purpose hardware security modules business worldwide. The deal still must clear regulatory hurdles in five other countries, including the United States. Bluefin Payment …

Adoption and usage rates for the mobile wallets from Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. (Google), and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. have been far from stellar, but now evidence is emerging that Apple’s decision a year ago to ditch fingerprint identification on its newest smart phones in favor of facial-recognition technology could …

Large companies are getting bombarded by approximately 530 bot attacks per day, and the vast majority of more than 200 firms surveyed have at least one person on their security teams devoted solely to bot defense, according to Osterman Research Inc. Osterman, a Black Diamond, Wash.-based research firm that works …

Cloud-based point-of-sale system maker ShopKeep said it closed a $65 million funding round, led by Tribeca Venture Partners, that it will use for expansion and growth purposes. New investors include First Data Corp. and Salesforce Ventures. A staff report released by Republicans on the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform …