Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Bitcoin is far from a mainstream payment method, but most merchants that accept the cryptocurrency are online sellers. On Monday, the Atlanta-based processor BitPay Inc. announced an update intended to bring Bitcoin and its recently hatched cousin, Bitcoin Cash, to more brick-and-mortar merchants. BitPay introduced its Checkout app, which works …

Boston-based OneView Commerce announced that Australia Post signed a multiyear software-as-a-service agreement to use OneView’s Cloud POS service. Payments provider Merchant e-Solutions released an updated version of its payment-acceptance extension for the Magento e-commerce platform. Payouts company Transpay said outbound payments from the United States to other nations increased 93% …

Driven by growth in the United States, Europe, and Russia, global remittances grew 7% in 2017 to $613 billion from $573 billion in 2016, the World Bank reported Monday. At the same time, the average cost of remittances fell, though expenses remain more than twice as high as the World …

By David Barnhardt, EVP of Product, GIACT Accounts receivable professionals say that they expect nearly half of all payments will be made by way of ACH by 20201. But while financial institutions, payment providers, businesses and consumers continue to adopt and benefit from faster payments, significant new challenges and risks …

Speculation that Visa Checkout and Masterpass brands may be on the way out has surfaced following announcements last week from Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. they would support a shared buy button for online purchases based on EMVCo’s Secure Remote Commerce specification. Reports of a possible phaseout of Masterpass, launched …

The global payment networks announced last week their support for the EMVCo Secure Remote Commerce Framework (SRC) and mentioned proprietary programs being introduced predicated on this framework with the promise to deliver security, standardization, simplification, fraud reduction, and increased conversion for digital commerce. The promise sounds like a keeper. Yet …

Ready, a company specializing in self-pay software for restaurants, has teamed with Squirrel POS, a supplier of point-of-sale software to the same industry, to allow customers to view, split, and pay their tab on their mobile phones. Automatic Laundry, which provides laundry-management services for multitenant buildings, announced the LaundryConnect Pay …

RealPage Inc., a vendor of software and data analytics to the real-estate business, has agreed to buy ClickPay, a payments processor for rent and other housing receivables, for $218.5 million in cash and stock. The deal is expected to close within the next six months. Infinicept, a company that offers services to …

The twin imperatives for independent sales organizations these days are to get bigger fast and to collaborate with independent software vendors, Todd Linden, chief executive of Paysafe North America, tells Digital Transactions News. Linden, a veteran acquiring-industry executive, should know. Paysafe North America’s parent company, London-based Paysafe Holdings UK Ltd., …

Boosted by the rapid rise of chip card payments in Asia and the United States, more than half of general-purpose credit and debit cards worldwide now have an EMV chip, EMVCo reported Thursday. Plus, nearly two-thirds of card-present transactions now involve an EMV card being read by a point-of-sale terminal that …

Mastercard Inc. says it is preparing for a better online payments experience by backing the EMVCo secure remote commerce specification. Visa Inc., too, says it supports the spec. The specification, announced in November, establishes the technical framework for enabling consumers to use their payment cards across channels more easily than …

NCR Corp. is the top provider of multivendor software for ATMs globally, according to U.K.-based research firm RBR. The company controls 32% of the installed base of 1.3 million machines running the software, 12 points higher than the second-place vendor. EMVCo, the chip card standards organization owned by the major …

Boosted by higher cardholder spending, American Express Co.’s discount revenue grew 9% in the first quarter despite a year-over-year decline in its average worldwide discount rate. AmEx reported late Wednesday that discount revenue hit $5.89 billion compared with $5.39 billion a year earlier. Discount revenue is by far AmEx’s largest …

Netherlands-based processor Adyen reported that it generated $1.14 billion in revenue last year, up $400 million over 2016, on merchant volume of $122 billion, up 61%. Recent press reports have speculated that Adyen, which has U.S. operations headquartered in San Francisco, is considering an IPO. Shares in online marketplace eBay …

More than a year after the Trump Administration took power, payments industry executives looking for a friendlier tone from Washington, D.C., are getting it, but it’s questionable just how much tangible benefit this will yield, two expert Washington observers said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the picture could darken this fall if, as …

Russia gets a bad rap because of its notorious hackers, but more U.S. e-commerce fraud originates from China and Venezuela than Russia, according to a new report from Experian plc. Experian, which is based in Dublin, Ireland, but has large U.S. businesses in credit reports and marketing and data services, …

Point-of-sale terminal maker PAX Technology said processor Worldpay Inc. now supports its handheld A920 POS terminal. Ingenico Group released the Moby/C150 electronic cash register, an EMV-compatible tablet point-of-sale system. VeriFone Systems Inc. said it is using AES DUKPT, a security key management standard, in its encryption service VeriShield Total Protect, in …

What impact can fraud-prevention services have on merchant retention? Apparently, quite a bit, finds the “State of Payment Processing & Fraud: 2018 Report” from Kount Inc. Kount, a Boise, Idaho-based risk-management technology provider, found that 75% of approximately 150 payment-processor respondents say offering fraud-control tools improved merchant retention. The high …

So far, neither near-field communication nor blockchain has been a blockbuster technology for payments in the U.S. market, but now developers are working on combining the two in a way they hope will give cryptocurrencies a big boost at the point of sale. The idea is to create a standard …

American Express Co. disclosed Monday that it will end its multi-merchant Plenti rewards program on July 10. AmEx announced the closure through a tweet on the Plenti Twitter feed and on Plenti’s Web site. “While Plenti has grown in scale since its launch, a number of factors, including shifting priorities …