Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

In today’s 4G world, connected homes allow you to turn on lights, turn down thermostats, or activate sprinklers, all remotely. Wearables wake you up and tell you how long and how well you slept. Fingerprints, faces, even the rhythm of your heart are replacing passwords. There’s a lot happening on the connectivity …

Mastercard Inc. and Oracle Corp. announced Monday a collaboration that could dramatically expand the reach of Mastercard’s Masterpass digital-wallet technology, as well as the network’s tokenization capability. Masterpass will be embedded into Oracle’s POS systems for retail and hospitality merchants. The companies said Oracle will embed Masterpass in systems it …

• Rambus Inc. introduced its Rambus Unified Payment Platform, which it says will enable mobile-wallet users to pay with credit, points, and coupons in a single transaction. • Payments provider Harbortouch Payments LLC announced a partnership with Strategic Funding Source, a merchant cash-advance provider. • Square Inc. will pay $54.8 million to Starbucks Corp. to cancel …

The former EMV prom that’s turned into the date from hell for some payments-industry vendors continued for point-of-sale terminal maker and e-commerce services provider Ingenico Group SA in the fourth quarter. The France-based firm that has major operations in Canada and the United States reported last week that its North …

E-commerce platform provider Shopify Inc. is facing pressure to cut ties with a controversial client, the Breitbart alt-right online news site. On Thursday, activist groups plan to present a petition with 140,000 signatures at Shopify’s Ottawa, Ontario, headquarters, demanding that the processor cut off Breitbart as a client. The news …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Square Inc.’s stock hit a record high Thursday in the wake of a strong fourth-quarter financial report. Now the merchant processor is looking to an updated point-of-sale system for retailers called

• Puerto Rico-based Evertec Inc. said revenue in its merchant-acquiring unit declined 1% in the fourth quarter to $23.1 million while revenue in its payment-processing segment grew 0.4% to $28.9 million. Evertec announced it has an agreement to buy Chile-based EFT Group S.A., a payment processor and software company that uses the …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews It has become an article of faith that mobile payments capability alone won’t excite consumers. The challenge lies in how to meld loyalty with payments in a single tap at checkout for multiple retail chains. On Friday, Urban Airship Inc. announced an integration of its Reach …

Green Dot Corp.’s chief executive on Wednesday hailed the company’s pending acquisition of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau <![endif]–> The company finished 2016 with $718.8 million in total operating revenue, up 3.5% over its 2015 revenue total. Net income for the year came in at $41.6 million, up 8% from $38.4 …

• Royal Dutch Shell plc said it is finalizing the deployment of EMV-compliant point-of-sale terminals for inside use at more than 11,000 of its U.S. locations. Currently, almost 80% of the locations are EMV-compliant, with the rest expected this spring. As the inside-the-store project is completed, the petroleum company will shift …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews As the U.S. Supreme Court gets nearer to considering the 2012 interchange settlement, the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association asked the court to let stand an settlement. The trade groups, which for the most part represent large retailers, argue, in part, that the …

By Rick Oglesby @DTPaymentNews PayPal Holdings Inc. has always been an enigma. It’s not really a payment network, not really an independent sales organization or merchant acquirer, not really a wallet or a prepaid card issuer, not really a person-to-person payments solution, and not really a payment gateway. Yet, it …

• The National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand an appellate court’s ruling last June striking down the controversial 2012 settlement between merchants on the one side and Visa, Mastercard, and some big banks on the other in a long-running antitrust class …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Square Inc.’s gross payment volume rose 34% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, generating strong revenues and other financial metrics despite large merchants accounting for a bigger share of volume. The San Francisco-based merchant processor late Wednesday afternoon also gave an upbeat outlook for 2017, all of which …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews CareCredit, the health-care financing unit of the big private-label and cobranded credit card provider

Up against formidable competitors like PayPal Holdings Inc., Sweden’s Klarna is seeking every edge it can find for increased U.S. market share in online payments. That effort received a boost on Tuesday with the announcement by omnicommerce specialist Radial that it has integrated Klarna on it platform, which supports hundreds …

Gulf Oil L.P. becomes the latest fuel retailer to offer its own mobile-payment app with the introduction Tuesday of Gulf Pay. The service, scheduled to be tested at some New England and New York locations in the first half of 2017, eventually will accept Mastercard Inc.’s Masterpass digital wallet. Further …

• Merchant processor SignaPay Ltd. announced the official launch of its PayLo software, which allows merchants to collect what the company calls a “small” service fee on each transaction processed on merchants’ point-of-sale terminals. The fee is waived if the customer uses cash or a gift card. SignaPay says the software is …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews As retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. ramp up their mobile wallets, the tech companies that offer general-purpose SimplyTapp Inc. developed the original HCE technology. Google, now the main subsidiary of Mountain View, Calif.-based Alphabet, included HCE in late 2013 in Android 4.4, also …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Not all private-label charge and prepaid card programs are equally successful, and so neither will be the proprietary mobile wallets recently launched by merchants. Factors that are likely to lead to a successful app include the strength of the retailer’s brand, its commitment to either convenience …