Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

• In a huge legal development for the payment card industry, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a lower court’s 2013 approval of a $7.25 billion settlement of a merchant class-action lawsuit accusing Visa, MasterCard, and some banks of antitrust violations in setting credit card interchange. The appellate …

• In a huge legal development for the payment card industry, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned a lower court’s 2013 approval of a $7.25 billion settlement of a merchant class-action lawsuit accusing Visa, MasterCard, and some banks of antitrust violations in setting credit card interchange. The appellate …

Citigroup Inc. on Wednesday announced it has struck a definitive agreement to sell its institutional Prepaid Card Services unit to Munich, Germany-based Wirecard AG. The deal is significant in that it will give Europe’s second-largest payment processor a toehold in the U.S., and it marks the retreat by another big …

• Noodles & Co. reported that malware led to the compromise of an undisclosed number of customers’ credit and debit cards between Jan. 31 and June 2 at 407 locations in 27 states and the District of Columbia representing 80% of its 507 total stores; the fast-casual restaurant chain began …

• Noodles & Co. reported that malware led to the compromise of an undisclosed number of customers’ credit and debit cards between Jan. 31 and June 2 at 407 locations in 27 states and the District of Columbia representing 80% of its 507 total stores; the fast-casual restaurant chain began …

Four years after launching a peer-to-peer payments capability using the clearXchange network, Wells Fargo & Co. is enabling a real-time function for its service. Announced Monday, the enhancement enables Wells customers to send and receive real-time payments with no fee from and to customers of any bank that participates in …

• Grocery store giant The Kroger Co. filed a federal lawsuit against Visa Inc. accusing the card network of trying to force it to allow customers to verify EMV debit card purchases with signatures, and thereby route transactions to the Visa network, rather than with PINs as Kroger prefers, The …

The Kroger Co. on Monday sued Visa Inc. over the network’s alleged efforts to force the nation’s leading grocery-store chain to route EMV chip debit card transactions over Visa’s network by having customers sign for purchases rather than enter PINs. Kroger, the largest retailer after Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to …

The U.S. rollout of EMV is just one chapter—albeit a major one—in an unfolding international payments story, but another one is taking the stage that could have important implications both for faster payments and cross-border transactions. SWIFT, the Belgium-based international financial-messaging organization, announced on Tuesday that 73 financial institutions worldwide …

EMV chip cards promise more secure transactions, which means less fraud, but so far implementing EMV has been problematic for many merchants, ISVs, and ISOs. Issues range from integration hassles to certification backlogs to unfamiliar chargebacks, not to mention frustration at the point of sale with slow transaction speeds. It …

Getting point-of-sale terminals through the EMV-certification process should become a bit quicker thanks to the card brands’ efforts to “streamline” the testing process. That should bode well for POS terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc., says Vin D’Agostino, executive vice president of VeriFone Services. MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. separately announced programs that …

A second day of market turmoil in the wake of the United Kingdom’s “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union once again took a big bite out of stocks of U.S.-based payments companies with large operations in the U.K. and Europe. For example, on a day when the major market indexes …

• Prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp. appointed William I. Jacobs, who joined its board of directors in April, as board chairman. The chairman spot had been held by CEO Steve Streit, but the company, which recently had a proxy fight, is separating the roles. Jacobs currently is chairman of …

  Regulation of virtual currency at the state level is proving to be a stop-and-start affair. No other state has yet followed New York with its now famous “BitLicense” to regulate virtual currencies under existing law. But in North Carolina, a bill to update the state’s money-transmitter act could become …

Merchants, in their argument for PIN rather than signature authentication for EMV chip card transactions, may have industry opinion on their side. According to an informal poll conducted this week by Digital Transactions News, two-thirds of readers agree that the merchants suing the card networks over the issue have a …

Shares of U.S. payments companies fell even farther than the general market Friday as the world absorbed the news from Thursday’s stunning “Brexit” vote in the United Kingdom in which British voters signaled they want to leave the European Union. Whether today’s market carnage is a sign of future long-term …

• The Merchants Payments Coalition, a Washington, D.C., lobbying group, released a new statement decrying what it calls a “poison pill” provision embedded in a bill proposed earlier this month by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, to reform the 2010 Dodd Frank Act. The provision would repeal the debit-interchange curbs …

Digital-currency specialist Circle Internet Financial Ltd. is expanding into China following a $60 million investment from a syndicate of investors. This follows a $50 million funding round raised last year by the Boston-based company. Circle enables users to send and receive funds instantly at no charge using blockchain technology. A …

With the U.S. EMV transition just getting into high gear, the number of EMV chip cards worldwide increased last year by 1.4 billion, or 41%, the EMVCo standards body reported Thursday. Meanwhile, Discover Financial Services joined the other three U.S. general-purpose payment card networks in taking steps to speed up …

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched Walmart Pay in 11 states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, and Indiana. • Citing volatile exchange rates for the British pound, some money-transfer companies are temporarily suspending pound transfers until after results of today’s “Brexit” vote on …