Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

A survey for megabank Bank of America Corp. indicates that consumers of all ages are ready to embrace electronic person-to-person payments. BofA’s latest Trends in Consumer Mobility Report, released last month, found that 36% of all respondents use a P2P payments service. Market-research firm Convergys queried for the bank 1,005 …

The growth of the legal cannabis industry will force bankers and payments executives to examine the business prospects of serving that industry, according to an executive with a regional automated clearing house association. While marijuana remains illegal under federal law, 29 states have approved for it for use by adults …

First Data Corp. is hoping that its scale—it says it processes more than 2,800 transactions per second coming from more than 6 million merchants—will give its new Fraud Detect service an edge in thwarting fraudulent transactions. Announced Thursday, Fraud Detect uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, fraud scoring, cybersecurity intelligence, …

• Marking an end to American Express Co.’s cobranded card losing streak, hotel chain Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. named AmEx as its exclusive credit card issuer effective Jan. 1, according to Bloomberg. AmEx and Citigroup Inc., which took over issuance of the Costco Wholesale Corp. cobranded card from AmEx a year …

With chip cards and contactless mobile transactions gradually working their way into more merchant checkouts, Square Inc. is pairing a couple of tried-and-true offers to push an 18-month-old card reader that handles both EMV and Apple Pay. In the latest wave of a promotional campaign that was announced in January, Square earlier …

Financial institutions and third-party providers of digital person-to-person payments may have the same goal—ubiquity of service and adoption—but they’ll have to take different paths to get there, according to “Digital Person-to-Person Payments in the U.S.: The Competitive Landscape,” a report released last week by the Aite Group LLC. The P2P …

• POS Portal Inc., a point-of-sale equipment distributor, said it is now supplying payment equipment via Retail Realm, a POS software distributor. • Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. said it is providing payment technology for Hyundai Motor UK’s “Click To Buy” platform, which lets consumers buy a car online from any participating …

The Android Pay mobile-payments service from Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit is now live or about to go live in Canada, payments companies and media outlets reported Wednesday. Canada’s Interac Association national debit network said that its Interac Debit service will be available for Android Pay mobile payments beginning June 5 …

While the benefits of electronic transactions for health-care payments—reduced operating costs, efficient processing, enhanced reliability, and strengthened security—are widely acknowledged, the health-care industry has faced many challenges keeping pace with standard electronic-payment adoption rates. And the problem will only get worse unless payment-solution providers expand their offerings to support the …

Just six months after declaring that it intended to become a player in the independent software vendor (ISV) payments space, processor First Data Corp. late Monday said it has a deal to buy a prominent ISV, CardConnect Corp., for $750 million. “CardConnect has been investing in technology, dedicated sales, and specialized …

• PayRange Inc., which specializes in mobile payments for vending machines, has extended its service to coin-operated laundry machines. The service is available for Speed Queen and Maytag machines, with other makes to come, the company said. • Quick-serve restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. updated consumers about a breach of its point-of-sale system …

Global shipments of chip cards surpassed 2.1 billion in 2016, a 4% increase from 2015, says the Smart Payment Association. “Following significant EMV rollout programs in the United States and China, 2016 saw shipment volumes begin to normalize to reflect growing market maturity in most major global markets,” said Sylvie …

The decision to strip repeal of the Durbin Amendment from a Dodd-Frank overhaul bill puts a brake on the movement to get rid of the amendment’s debit card rules, but that may not necessarily be the end of the matter. Leading advocates for repeal vow to keep fighting, while a …

Two prominent names in payment card security, ControlScan Inc. and EchoSat Inc., announced Thursday that they will merge. The combined companies, to operate under the ControlScan name, will service more than 775,000 card-accepting merchants across North America. ControlScan works with merchant acquirers and payment processors to provide merchants with a …

• North American Bancard Holdings Inc. and Total Merchant Services Inc. will retain their unique brands and products in the immediate future following NAB’s acquisition of TMS, said NAB chief executive Marc Gardner. NAB announced the TMS acquisition last week. “The TMS brand will remain intact, its sales staff remains as …

With little fanfare, so-called behavioral biometrics began appearing on the radar screens of payment card security executives about two years ago. Now, however, experts predict behavioral biometrics will assume a more prominent role in protecting payment transactions as e-commerce and mobile commerce continue gaining share of retail sales and the …

Merchants’ actual fraud costs are up for the third year in a row and their total fraud-related expenses also are rising, according to the latest True Cost of Fraud study from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Fraud as a percentage of the revenues reported by the 653 retailer risk-control executives surveyed for …

• Phillips 66 Co. moved closer to the launch of its mobile-payments service for fuel purchases with the unveiling of its mobile-commerce platform developed in conjunction with P97 Networks Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay. • Payment gateway Shift4 Corp. announced its cofounders, J. David Oder and Katherine Oder, are entering …

With e-commerce taking an ever-greater share of total retail sales and mobile commerce accounting for an ever-greater share of e-commerce, merchants need to start treating m-commerce fraud control as more than a subset of online fraud control. That was the word Tuesday from Susan Pandy, the director of payment strategies …

• Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia reached an $18.5 million settlement with Target Corp. over its 2013 data breach, the Illinois Attorney Generals office announced. The breach affected more than 41 million payment card accounts and the contact information for more than 60 million consumers, the attorney general press release …