Apple Pay Boosts Vending Revenue and other Digital Transactions News briefs

• Visa Inc.’s Canadian unit posted an “open letter” in Canadian newspapers Thursday to protest Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s plan to stop accepting Visa cards in its 400 Canadian stores beginning July 18 because of allegedly high acceptance costs. “Wal-Mart has initiated a public flight—something we never wanted—as they are using their own customers as negotiating leverage,” Visa said. “Wal-Mart is unfairly dragging millions of Canadian consumers into the middle of a business disagreement that can and should be resolved between our companies.” Despite the payment card networks under government pressure lowering interchange in 2014 to an effective rate of approximately 1.5% of the sale, Wal-Mart said Visa’s fees are still too high, Bloomberg reported.

• A study from vending specialist USA Technologies Inc. found that promoting Apple Pay on its contactless vending terminals resulted in a 26% increase in overall transactions and an 89% increase in revenue through contactless purchases, including Apple Pay.

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched Walmart Pay, its smart phone-based payment service in Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

• JPMorgan Chase & Co. is now providing clearXchange person-to-person payments, Bloomberg reports. The bank-owned service enables real-time payments between consumers.

• EMVCo posted a webcast about its progress in updating 3-D Secure, an antifraud technology for online payment transactions; the chip card standards body expects to release its 3-D Secure 2.0 specification later this year.

• IPad-based point-of-sale provider Revel Systems is working with processor Vantiv Inc. on the “Revel Up Your Dream” social-media contest for entrepreneurs. Revel also launched its “Revel Up Your Dream” fund that will award $25,000 of Revel hardware and hosting services to a winner as part of the contest.

• Xerox Corp., which plans to split into two publicly traded companies by year’s end, says its $7 billion business-process outsourcing unit, which includes transit and health-care payment services, will be called Conduent Inc., while the $11 billion document-technology business will retain the Xerox brand.