Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

American Express Co. is stepping up its campaign to add small merchants to its acceptance base with a program called OptBlue that gives partner merchant acquirers a greater role than they had with an older program called OnePoint. AmEx started testing OptBlue late last year and revealed details about it …

Apple Inc. removed from its vast mobile-applications market called the App Store the Blockchain mobile wallet for accessing the Bitcoin virtual currency, an action Blockchain claims will leave no native Bitcoin options for users of Apple’s iOS mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad. Apple’s move quickly stirred protests …

A new contactless payment scheme available from On Track Innovations Ltd. enables consumers to pay for fuel at the pump without removing their payment card from their wallets. n Currently, EasyFuel Plus is available in Europe and other international locations. OTI says plans to market it in the United States …

EMVCo., the international standards body for chip cards based on the EMV specification, is fast-tracking a specification for card-number tokenization in the wake of recently disclosed data breaches at major retailers, including the theft of card and other information on 110 million customers of Target Corp. The chip card organization …

Close to 60% of ISOs and other processors are reporting compliance rates of 40% or better among their portfolios of so-called Level 4 merchants, up about five percentage points from a year ago, according to a survey released by Atlanta-based security-solutions vendor ControlScan Inc. and the Merchant Acquirers’ Committee, a …

Target Corp. said on Tuesday that it passed its latest Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) inspection a mere three months before confirming in December that a data breach compromised 40 million customers’ payment card numbers. Target also said it is fast-tracking its efforts to roll out chip card acceptance …

Another large retailer, with as many as 100,000 locations, will begin using a mobile payments app developed by Paydiant Inc. within the next few weeks, Jed Rice, senior vice president of business development, told attendees at the Northeast Acquirers Association conference last week in West Dover, Vt. n He also …

Merchants and financial institutions will find their information-protection practices under intense scrutiny this week in Washington, where no fewer than four Senate and House of Representatives hearings are scheduled in the wake of payment card data breaches at Target Corp., Neiman Marcus Group and other merchants. The sessions kick off …

Visa Inc. chief executive Charles Scharf on Thursday quelled rumors that the payment network might change its October 2015 liability-shift deadline for Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card transactions. Scharf also decried what he called “misinformation” and “confusion” about card security following December’s news of Target Corp.’s huge payment card data breach and …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against Mercury Payment Systems LLC alleging deceptive pricing by Mercury allowed it to lure scores of merchants away from Heartland and attract prospects to Mercury that had been weighing the two companies for payment-processing services. Heartland’s suit, filed in U.S. …

Mobile-imaging software developer Mitek Systems Inc. on Wednesday announced its Mobile Photo Payments application that enables large billers to receive bill payments from consumers using their mobile devices. The service complements San Diego-based Mitek’s existing Mobile Photo Bill Pay product, which rolled out last year and is distributed mainly through …

In the wake of the recently discovered data breaches at major merchants like Target Corp., Neiman Marcus Group, and Michaels Stores, much of the talk in the payments industry has focused on whether more advanced card technology, like chip cards, might have mitigated the risk of fraud. But one ambitious …

  With 20 months to go until a major liability shift associated with the migration of the U.S. payment system to chip card, independent sales organizations and acquirers should not wait to get themselves and their merchants ready for the October 2015 deadline, advised Leland S. Englebardt, group head of …

The U.S. Treasury Department this month began soliciting bids from banks to run its Direct Express prepaid card for Social Security recipients and other beneficiaries. The card program is currently run by Dallas-based Comerica Bank and has encountered political controversy in Washington. Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service is taking …

  Global Payments Inc.’s $420 million deal to buy integrated payments-software maker Payment Processing Inc., or PayPros, is furthering its strategy as the payment processor looks to grow its direct sales, says a Global Payments spokeswoman. Atlanta-based Global Payments announced the deal Friday to buy the Newark, Calif.-based PayPros, which …

Having been for years at the center of speculation on the matter, Apple Inc. may finally be readying a foray into mobile payments, according to news reports over the weekend. Citing knowledgeable sources, The Wall Street Journal Friday night said online-services chief Eddy Cue is heading up the effort at …

Seemingly confirming predictions from law enforcement and data-security executives in private industry that more data breaches beyond the recent ones at Target Corp. and Neiman Marcus Group are coming, arts-and-crafts retailer Michaels Stores on Saturday warned that “we may have experienced a data-security attack.” Plano, Texas-based Michaels alerted consumers to …

At least one competitor of payment-service provider WePay Inc. is working to take advantage of WePay’s decision to cease providing a hosted checkout service for online merchants. 2Checkout.com Inc., Columbus, Ohio, this week began wooing merchants that may want to stay with a hosted checkout service rather than use the …

  Social media network Twitter Inc. may be on the verge of enabling full-fledged commerce, and payments, for the more than 230 million monthly active users of the service, according to a report on Re/code, a technology news site. In it, Re/code says Twitter is nearing a deal with Stripe, …

A mobile-banking feature that allows ATM users to stage withdrawals in advance received a patent Tuesday from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The technology, conceived and implemented by Paydiant Inc., a Wellesley, Mass.-based startup, has already been integrated into software at ATM maker Diebold Inc. and at Fidelity National …