Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

• Merchant processor Square Inc. settled a lawsuit filed by a Washington University professor, Robert E. Morley, who said he invented Square’s card reader for smart phones. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Square set aside $50 million in the first quarter to cover legal expenses from the …

Forecasters have long predicted that the U.S. payments market’s move to EMV chip cards for in-person transactions will drive criminals into e-commerce fraud. Now data is emerging to show the nuances these fraudsters are exploiting, and how the rise in online fraud is hardly limited to the U.S. market. In …

Apple Inc. is bringing its Apple Pay service, originally restricted to apps and the Apple mobile wallet, to e-commerce sites on the Web. Apple Pay on the Web will be available this fall as part of the iOS 10 mobile and macOS desktop software updates. “We wanted to bring the …

• Payments veteran Michael J. Schwartz was appointed interim chief executive of mobile-payments and -marketing firm Spindle Inc. upon founding chief executive Bill Clark’s resignation. Schwartz comes to the company from Fiserv Inc. Clark had been CEO since 2011. • Processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) purchased the 45% stake …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s 400-store Canadian unit announced Saturday that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores beginning with phased discontinuance starting July 18. “Following an evaluation of credit card transaction fees in Canada and the rest of the world, we have concluded the fees applied to …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is lining up the necessary elements for its Chase Pay mobile service. The bank announced Thursday that more than 14,000 Shell Oil Co. locations potentially could accept the nascent mobile wallet. Chase shared few details, such as when Chase Pay might be accepted at Shell stations, …

• ATM deployer Cardtronics Inc. reached a new agreement with the Chicago Transit Authority under which it will place almost 40 new ATMs at CTA passenger stations, replacing machines already at those stations, and install more machines at additional stations. The move, which expands on an agreement reached with the …

The payments industry may never know for sure what prompted Visa Inc. to back off on a potentially lucrative new fee aimed at issuers planning to defect to other networks. But a clue to the decision emerged Wednesday when U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s office issued a statement celebrating the move …

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin on Thursday asked MasterCard Inc. to explain an obscure fee with a clunky name that the senator believes penalizes MasterCard issuers when merchants exercise their transaction-routing rights under the Durbin Amendment with MasterCard debit card purchases. But MasterCard says issuers benefit whenever its cards are used, …

Issuers contending with payment card fraud will have to factor in mobile wallets, especially as the battle to thwart account takeovers intensifies. A majority of issuers—56%—said they cannot further reduce account takeovers without hurting the customer experience, according to a card-issuer fraud study released recently by LexisNexis Risk Solutions and …

When the Merchant Customer Exchange LLC announced last month it is postponing a rollout of its CurrentC pilot in Columbus, Ohio, observers suspected the news did not bode well for the merchant-controlled mobile wallet. On Monday, those suspicions were confirmed as MCX told CurrentC account holders in an email that …

• A bill by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, to replace 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act” would hurt consumers and Main Street businesses,” the Merchants Payments Coalition said, because the measure would do away with the financial reform law’s Durbin Amendment that regulates debit card interchange and sets debit card transaction-routing requirements. …

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the author of the fee-capping Durbin Amendment, is well-known as a champion of merchants, but now he’s taking up the cause of small banks and credit unions. Durbin on Tuesday sent a letter to Visa Inc. chief executive Charles Scharf asking for information about a new …

The U.S. conversion to EMV chip cards has produced a windfall for VeriFone Systems Inc. over the past couple of years. But despite record revenues in the quarter ended April 30, delays in getting EMV equipment certified contributed to sharply lower profits and financial expectations for the leading domestic point-of-sale …

The mobile point-of-sale revolution started in North America with smart-phone readers from startups like Square Inc. and established software houses like Intuit Inc., but it’s now a global phenomenon with broad implications for entrenched players and newcomers alike, according to research released Monday. Indeed, mobile POS gear—chiefly phones or tablets …

Mobile-wallet provider OmnyPay Inc. is nearing the launch of its white-label service, which includes payments, loyalty, and offers, with a top 30 U.S. retailer. The debut is expected within the next few months. That’s the word from Mohammad Khan, OmnyPay president and cofounder, in an interview with Digital Transactions News. …

Nearly 283 million Visa-branded credit and debit cards issued by U.S. financial institutions now have an EMV chip, Visa Inc. reports. In addition, some 1.1 million U.S. merchant locations that accept Visa cards now take chip cards. In the latest of the payment card networks’ updates on the U.S. chip …

• The ATM Industry Association teamed up with media and conference firm Reconnaissance International to organize a series of international events under the “ATM & Cash Innovation” moniker. • Vantiv Integrated Payments, a Vantiv Inc. company, began the next phase of its Security Pays program to encourage business owners to …

• Visa Inc. said the European Commission, the competition authority of the European Union, approved its planned acquisition of bank card association Visa Europe Ltd.; the $23-billion-plus deal has now received all regulatory approvals, and Visa Inc. expects it to close by June 30. • Visa debuted a payment ring for Team …