Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

First Data Corp. is taking its Clover brand, known until now as a mobile point-of-sale service, to the Web with a launch May 3 of the Clover Online Store. Announced Wednesday at Transact16, the Electronic Transactions Association’s annual conference in Las Vegas, the service enables merchants to set up an …

As federal regulators increasingly zero in on data breaches, lawyers at a payments conference on Wednesday warned that organizations that suffer breaches are likely to have a tougher time avoiding legal liability in the years ahead. And the PCI Security Standards Council disclosed some of the major changes in its …

• SuperCom Ltd., an Israel-based identity-verification company, bought PowaPOS, the tablet-based point-of-sale unit of Powa Technologies Ltd., a commerce company that floundered. Powa’s two other units, PowaWeb and PowaTag, already have been sold. • American Express Co. reported $176.3 billion in U.S. card-billed business during the first quarter, up 4% from a …

Visa Inc. will be paying more upfront cash to acquire Visa Europe Ltd., and it paid more in client incentives in the quarter ending March 31. But the leading payment card network still managed to turn a tidy profit and saw double-digit increases in U.S. transaction volumes even though volume …

Total charge volume on Discover Financial Services’s networks fell 5% in the first quarter thanks to a 15% drop at the Discover-owned Pulse electronic funds transfer network. But U.S. Bancorp, which owns the big merchant acquirer Elavon, says its merchant-processing revenue increased 4% due to higher transaction volumes and sales …

• The Merchants Payments Coalition, a lobbying group for merchants on payment issues, attacked a Harvard University research paper as “just plain wrong” after the paper argued the debit-interchange caps in the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act drove up banking costs for consumers. • Terminal maker Ingenico Group …

Many consumers and merchants adjusting to using newly-issued EMV credit and debit cards may undergo a perception versus reality check as Visa Inc. prepares to debut its Quick Chip for EMV program. Visa also provided updated chip card issuing and acceptance data. Announced Tuesday, the program enables consumers to remove …

Despite all the fuss the payments industry is making over mobile wallets, financial institutions have been remarkably low-key. With the notable exception of giants like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Capital One Financial Corp., nearly all banks and credit unions have ceded the initiative to nonbank players like Apple Inc., …

• Merchant processor North American Bancard Holdings introduced its Inovio Payment gateway service; NAB says Inovio’s name is taken from the word “innovation” and that the service, which includes a virtual point of sale and hosted checkout solutions, will open new markets for the company. • Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has changed …

Merchant processor Cayan on Monday unveiled a new point-of-sale system for small and mid-sized businesses that want high-tech capabilities without the costs and hassles of managing integrated POS systems like those used by national retailers. Global POS terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc., meanwhile, announced the integration of its Verifone Point …

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. has taken another step to broadening the reach of its payments service with the debut Friday of an in-store payment service at a New York apparel retailer. This marks the first time Amazon payments has enabled in-store payments with a merchant, Amazon says. Just a couple …

When The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC enlisted processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) last fall to help it launch real-time payments in the United States, it wasn’t ready to say when the system would go live. On Monday, TCH answered that question and also cleared up what types …

• Fidelity National Information Services Inc. and The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC announced they will launch a pilot for real-time payments in the first quarter of next year. The system will focus initially on bill payments and will use FIS technology along with The Clearing House’s real-time payment platform. …

Universal mobile wallets have yet to gain the hearty embrace of merchants and consumers, unlike those serving a solitary merchant. But that will change, forecasts the “Merchant Mobile Wallets: Mobile Payments in Action” report released Wednesday by Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The report from the Maynard, Mass.-based payments consultancy predicts …

  Mobile-wallet payments still account for less than 1% of Bank of America Corp.’s credit and debit card charge volume, but they are growing fast, as are mobile deposits, the nation’s second-largest bank reported Thursday. BofA’s mega-bank rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co. & Wells Fargo and Co. also reported growth …

• Canada-based Mobeewave is making its PayMeTap mobile peer-to-peer app available to consumers across Canada. The free app had been in testing. The Android app enables consumers to accept a payment by tapping a phone with a contactless credit card.   • Payments company BillingTree Inc. launched the Payrazr Marketplace, …

The automated clearing house network reported stepped-up transaction volume with each set of quarterly statistics it released last year, and on Thursday it confirmed officially that 2015 was a banner year for growth. The payments network, which connects virtually every financial institution in the country, handled more than 24 billion …

Mobile payment and marketing provider LevelUp is continuing its fight against a rival over an alleged patent infringement and the New York Attorney General has filed suit against Northern Leasing Systems Inc. alleging deceptive business practices. In 2015, Boston-based LevelUp’s parent company, SCVNGR Inc., filed suit in U.S. District Court …

When it comes to mobile-payments services like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, the payments industry appears to be seeing adoption. But it could be years before it sees steady usage. The adoption picture, as defined by cardholders loading a card, is improving for Apple Pay, according to the latest numbers …

Consumers increasingly want choice in bill payments, according to findings from a new study by Fiserv Inc. The bank and payment processor’s Eighth Annual Billing Household Survey found that the average number of payment methods consumers use monthly rose from 2.9 in 2014 to 3.6 in 2015, a 24% increase. …