Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Bridg Inc., a marketing software company for the restaurant industry, said Thursday that it lined up $11 million in series B funding from Visa Inc. and private-equity firms Morpheus Ventures, NextEquity Partners, and March Capital. Specific investment amounts made by each company were not disclosed. Los Angeles-based Bridg uses artificial …

American Express Co. says it disagrees with an opinion from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that differences in card products it offered in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Pacific Territories from cards it offered in the United States amounted to discrimination. AmEx says it resolved the differences in 2013 after …

QualPay, a provider of cloud-based, integrated-payments solutions, launched a developer portal allowing integrators to evaluate and deploy payment services. Person-to-person payments by users of services offered by community banks and credit unions average $450, compared to $25 for users of Venmo, a popular third-party app, according to data from Malauzai Software, …

USA Technologies Inc., a provider of payment services for vending machines and other unattended merchant locations, said Tuesday the number of connections in its ePort network grew 32% year-over-year to 568,000 as of June 30, and transaction volume nearly as much. The Malvern, Pa.-based firm also reported net income of …

It’s what some may consider a bold forecast for contactless payments in the United States, but Juniper Research is predicting that, by 2022, 34% of electronic payments will be contactless, up from less than 2% in 2017. United Kingdom-based Juniper released its forecast Monday in a report called “POS and …

Steven A. Rathgaber, who has been chief executive of ATM-networking firm Cardtronics plc since 2010, will retire at the end of the year and will be succeeded by Edward H. West, currently chief financial officer and chief operations officer, the company announced. Rathgaber came to Cardtronics from the NYCE electronic funds transfer …

The political coroner has made an official pronouncement: Operation Choke Point is dead. The controversial program begun in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Justice during the administration of President Barack Obama aimed to deny payment services to fraudulent telemarketers, payday lenders, and other suspect merchants. It generated massive controversy for …

A pioneering mobile-payment wallet for mass transit has reached a milestone. Chicago’s Ventra app has been downloaded more than 2 million times since it became available in November 2015, according to an announcement Monday from Cubic Transportation Systems, the San Diego-based company that developed the app. Commuters have bought almost …

Financial-services processor Fiserv Inc. announced it has acquired real-time payments provider Dovetail Group Ltd. Terms were not announced. Payments provider Spectrum Payments said it joined the National Rural Health Association as a pipeline partner, enabling it to offer merchant services to association members. Blockchain technology firm BTCS Inc. said it has signed a non-binding letter of intent …

A number of daunting challenges face the U.S. payments industry as it sets out to make speedier transactions available everywhere in the country within three years, according to a report released this week by Aite Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. Among these challenges are the absence of an industrywide mandate …

Tablet-based point-of-sale provider Revel Systems announced Thursday it will offer data-integration services from Dsync to its merchants. Australia-based Dsync provides systems-integration services that enable businesses to view disparate types of data in a single Web-based site. For example, Dsync says it can connect systems used to manage inventory, payments, e-commerce sites, …

It didn’t get a lot of press at the time, but the acquisition by merchant acquirer Global Payments Inc. of Accelerated Payment Technologies in 2012 proved to be the starting point of big acquirers pairing up with integrated software vendors and value-added resellers to deepen their relationships with merchants. Atlanta-based …

A global payments initiative called P20 will convene its first meeting Oct. 10 in London. Government officials and regulators from the United Kingdom and the United States are expected to attend, along with 20 payments-industry leaders. The conference is intended to promote the importance of payments and financial technology to …

In the wake of violent clashes last weekend between white supremacist groups and counter-demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va., payments companies are cutting off access to their systems that supremacist groups use to accept donations. Pressure on the payments firms began building not long after a female counter-demonstrator was fatally struck by …

While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working toward an April 1, 2018, effective date for its massive rule for prepaid accounts, prepaid card industry advocates are urging the agency to further delay the rule by another year. In a comment filed this week with the CFPB, which regulates all …

Merchant processor and payments-technology provider Cayan has achieved EMV chip card certification with processor Worldpay US, adding to EMV certifications with Chase, Vantiv, First Data, and Elavon. Worldpay’s parent, Worldpay Group plc, will be acquired by Vantiv in a $12 billion deal expected to close early next year. Merchant processor Net Element Inc. said its PayOnline …

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Digital-banking platform developer Urban FT Inc. disclosed early Wednesday that it has made a “compelling offer” for financially troubled Digiliti Money Group Inc., a provider of mobile remote deposit capture services for banks. News of the all-cash offer, whose size wasn’t disclosed, sent Digiliti’s beaten-down stock soaring on the Nasdaq …

It’s been a year since the so-called faster EMV burst on the scene at some grocery stores on the West Coast, and so far officials at the chain that owns the two store brands involved in that launch couldn’t be more pleased with how the technology has smoothed out EMV’s …

Ziosk, a tabletop point-of-sale system owned by Tabletop Media LLC, said Wednesday that more than 100 Outback Steakhouse restaurant locations in the Southwest will use its devices. Cerca Trova Restaurant Concepts, the franchisee for Outback restaurants in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, is expanding the number of locations …