Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Mobile payments in the United States haven’t grown as fast as program sponsors had thought they would, and now the industry is looking at what the reasons might be. After all, the payment method is positioned to consumers as a faster, easier, more secure alternative to cards, and one that …

Private-equity firm GTCR, which bought Sage Payment Solutions in August from its British parent company The Sage Group plc, appointed veteran independent sales organization executive Joe Kaplan as chief executive of the merchant processor, and also announced that it would invest $350 million to support Sage. Kaplan is the former …

Zelle, the bank-backed person-to-person payments network, says a daily average of 65,000 consumers enrolled in the service in the third quarter, helping to push its volume to more than 60 million P2P payments valued at $17.5 billion. Zelle, which is owned by Early Warning Services LLC, says more than 50 …

Almost as many merchants—65%—seek to increase transaction volumes by reducing identity verification thresholds as do those—74%—that try to reduce fraudulent transactions through more effective verification methods. That quandary surfaced in the “Lost in Transaction Vol. II” report released Thursday by Paysafe Group plc. With a focus on fraud, including consumer …

Marking Apple Pay’s third anniversary, an Apple Inc. executive Sunday night outlined an ambition to make the wallet usable in a wide range of what the company calls “everyday” events in people’s lives. “This [Apple Pay] is the future of everyday spend,” declared Jennifer Bailey, vice president for Internet services …

The Clearing House, a major player in U.S. payments, is getting deeper into the tokenization business through a new pact with Mastercard Inc. New York City-based The Clearing House and Mastercard announced Thursday that TCH has become a Mastercard-certified third-party Token Service Provider (TSP). As such, TCH will be able …

With Venmo accounting for a swiftly growing share of PayPal’s total payment volume, the company’s top brass left no doubt on Thursday they are eager to start making the peer-to-peer payment service start paying its way. “We [now] begin to monetize Venmo,” PayPal chief executive Dan Schulman told equity analysts …

First Data Corp. made it official: it is acquiring merchant processor BluePay Holdings Inc. for $760 million in cash. BluePay processes $19 billion annually for 77,000 merchants and is integrated into more than 450 software platforms. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. First Data inadvertently …

Mastercard Inc. is doing away with a rule requiring merchants to get signatures for transactions made with its credit and debit cards in the United States and Canada. Announced early Thursday, Mastercard’s rule change goes into effect April 13, 2018, allowing issuers, merchants, and processors time to make adjustments, though …

Issuers, merchants, and processors all share the same dilemma when attempting to authenticate an online identity. They are bedeviled by personally identifiable information easily accessible to criminals that they can use to spoof authentic consumers. In response, Visa Inc. on Thursday announced the Visa ID Intelligence service, which it says …

From the Oops Department: First Data Corp. early Thursday quickly removed from its Web site an inadvertently posted press release saying it had a deal to acquire independent sales organization BluePay Holdings Inc. “First Data confirmed that it is currently in discussions with BluePay with respect to a potential transaction, …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is making a big move into the world of independent software vendors and payment facilitators with a planned acquisition of WePay Inc. that the nation’s largest bank announced late Tuesday. Redwood City, Calif.-based WePay develops payments-related application programming interfaces (APIs) for software developers to put into …

Consumers using the Phillips 66, Conoco, or 76-branded smart-phone apps soon will be able to pay for fuel using their checking accounts thanks to an integration with Buy It Mobility Networks, a New York City-based payment and customer relationship management platform. Announced Tuesday, the service will be available soon, says …

For U.S. Bancorp’s Elavon unit, merchant-processing revenues were down slightly in the third quarter, to $405 million, compared to a year ago, according to the bank’s earnings release. But revenue year to date is up 0.2%, at $1.19 billion, compared to the same period in 2016. Payment card manufacturer CPI …

As tourists from China visit the United States—they are now the fifth largest group of travelers to this country—they want to use familiar payment methods. Now, Alipay, the digital wallet from China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., will be accepted in New York City and Las Vegas taxis using VeriFone Systems …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has been talking for more than a year about allowing users of its popular Venmo person-to-person payments app to use the app to pay merchants. On Tuesday, the payments company threw the door wide open for Venmo, announcing it can now be used to pay at as …

Visa Inc. reported Tuesday that it has invested in Billtrust and is working with the business-to-business payments provider to streamline the reconciliation of B2B payments and increase the automation of virtual card payments for financial institutions and their corporate customers. The companies did not reveal the size of Visa’s investment, …

Fuel-payments specialist P97 Networks and Buy It Mobility Networks, an automated clearing house-based payment and consumer-engagement provider, said they will provide ACH-based payment and related services to Phillips 66, Conoco, and 76-branded fuel stations. In 2016, P97 said it was working with Chase Pay on a payments service for Phillips …

By Caesar Kavadoy, VP of Sales Strategy, Paysafe A majority of payments companies focus solely on pricing and leave it up to the customers to figure out the rest. It’s time to make a change. Sales teams need to take a consultative, solutions-oriented sales approach to the business. If they don’t …

Global Payments Inc. is making the transaction data its merchants generate easier for them to access and use. The Atlanta-based processor launched Heartland Analytics Monday. The service, available to U.S. merchants, is designed for small and mid-size businesses in the restaurant and hospitality industries. The service enables them to view …