Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

With a push from regulators and competitive forces, banks are stepping up their development of application programming interfaces to enhance their payment and other financial services. APIs, which provide links so that disparate software systems, such as those at a bank and a financial-technology company that wants to offer services …

Toast, a 7-year-old provider of point-of-sale and payments software to restaurants, has launched its first POS device, a handheld that servers can use to accept payments and handle other functions. The device replaces a Samsung model the company used. Commerce platform Shopify Inc. reported transactions from mobile devices amounted to …

Processing giant First Data Corp. said on Monday Walmart Inc. has added Star signature debit acceptance to its roster of payment options. The company also noted that its integrated payments business continues to grow. Both observations came during the Atlanta-based company’s first-quarter earnings call with equity analysts. For the quarter, …

With digital-payments providers emerging all over the world to serve local and international consumers, the search is on for synchronized, standardized networks to transfer funds cross-border. Ripple, the San Francisco-based provider of distributed-ledger payments, says it has the answer, and late last week five payments services overseas signed on to …

Zippy’s Restaurants said credit and debit card data, including cardholder names and numbers, may have been compromised in a “data-security incident” at its approximately two dozen locations in Hawaii between last Nov. 23 and March 29; the chain learned of the incident March 9. The Western Union Co. has added …

By Scott Dowty, Chief Revenue Officer at Apriva, LLC Merchants today need to connect with their prospects and customers across multiple channels to survive and thrive.  This “omnichannel” strategy requires meeting the customer in store, online, with mobile, with self-service and vending, perhaps even with mail order/telephone order options.  And …

Since its founding nine years ago, Square Inc. has focused on simplified checkout options and software for small brick-and-mortar merchants. With its acquisition of Weebly Inc., announced late Thursday, San Francisco-based Square is not only staging a major expansion into e-commerce, it’s also laying the groundwork for a significant outreach …

Dollar volume in Discover Financial Services’s Payment Services unit rose 19% in the first quarter to $56.1 billion, led by a resurgent Pulse debit network where volume jumped 20%. Pulse, one of the nation’s largest electronic funds transfer networks, has been rebounding in recent quarters have a long period of …

Customers of safeTstep, the business-to-business division of Payless ShoeSource, can now use PayNearMe to pay for online orders with cash at more than 27,000 U.S. locations, Payless said. This follows an earlier announcement that consumers can use PayNearMe for their Payless.com purchases. The Zelle person-to-person payments network moved more than …

EVO Payments International says it plans to go public and has filed an S-1 registration statement with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Atlanta-based payments company announced the move late Wednesday. Though the registration statement does not reveal how much EVO expects to raise by going public, the company says …

      by Computer Services, Inc. (CSI) Now, more than ever, achieving a 360-degree view of customers is essential for optimized and effective anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. Financial institutions, including banks, investment firms, and insurers—and the services they offer both retail and corporate customers—have grown in size and complexity …

China’s central bank informed American Express Co. that it would “formally accept” its application to clear and settle domestic bank-card transactions, potentially making AmEx the first U.S. card network to get permission to operate in China, The Wall Street Journal reported. Visa Inc.’s stock has produced a total shareholder return …

Visa Inc. isn’t about to pull the plug on Visa Checkout, but judging from comments Visa’s top executives made Wednesday, the online and mobile-payment service’s long-term outlook looks quite iffy. The future of both Visa Checkout and Mastercard Inc.’s Masterpass equivalent was called into question last week when The Wall …

The PayPal Holdings Inc. machine just keeps chugging. The company announced on Wednesday added momentum in the first quarter, driven in part by gains in consumer and merchant accounts, results for Venmo, its popular peer-to-peer payments app, and strong performance for One Touch, its streamlined checkout technology. Without offering details, …

Boosted by its $1.05 billion acquisition of the big independent sales organization and merchant processor Cayan LLC in January, payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) saw its merchant revenues rise nearly 22% in the first quarter. TSYS’s Merchant Solutions segment posted net revenues of $317.4 million, a 21.8% increase …

The ongoing consolidation of companies focused on point-of-sale systems for restaurants gave rise on Tuesday to an antitrust suit that seeks to reverse one of the most recent mergers among payment processors. Payment Logistics Ltd., a San Diego-based payments provider, alleges in its complaint that Shift4 Payments LLC is using …

Over the years, merchants have been continually forced to adapt to the changing needs and preferences of consumers. Now more than ever, we are living in a consumer-driven economy, and with evolving technologies, the power of the consumer has filtered all the way to the payments experience. As consumers increasingly …

Michael Nardy, Founder and CEO     Working through the challenges of the market, today’s MLS need to be as agile as ever, often changing their marketing approach, sales pitch, and even reevaluating verticals they tackle in order to stay competitive. Recently, the growth of Surcharging and Cash Discount programs have …

Prepaid card and payments specialist InComm announced it is adding 150 jobs and investing more than $20 million in the Atlanta and Columbus, Ga., areas. The moves follow its acquisition of the distribution rights to American Express Co.’s reloadable and gift card products, and the purchase of the AmEx Serve platform. …

Contactless point-of-sale debit and credit card transactions are barely a blip on the U.S. payments screen, but on London’s vast public-transportation system, payments from contactless cards or smart phones now account for half of all pay-as-you-go fares on subways and rail lines, system operator Transport for London reported Tuesday. Contactless …