Chicago-based software developer Epazz Inc. spun off payments subsidiary ZenaPay Inc. as a Canadian corporation that will pursue business in the cannabis market. Citing a study by a British research firm, biometric card manufacturer SmartMetric Inc. says nearly 579 million biometric credit and debit cards will be in use globally …

A subsidiary of Visa Inc. is offering to buy Earthport PLC, a London-based provider of cross-border payments for banks and businesses, for approximately $250 million in cash. The offer represents a 250% premium to Earthport’s six-month average share price ended Dec. 24 and has the endorsement of Earthport’s board of …

Sales from Thanksgiving through Christmas on all forms of payment increased 5.1% compared to the same period last year to more than $850 billion, according to Mastercard Spending Pulse, which says this is the most robust growth seen in six years. Online sales gained 19.1%. Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp messaging platform …

Mindbody Inc., the health and wellness software-application provider, said Vista Equity Partners will buy the company for $1.9 billion. Shareholders will receive $36.50 per share, a 68% premium over Mindbody’s Dec. 21 closing price of $21.72. Mindbody became an independent sales organization in 2010 to be able to sell its …

Pepsi-Cola of the Hudson Valley reached an agreement  with USA Technologies Inc. to install contactless-payment capability on 300 vending machines and to upgrade payment devices on another 1,000 machines already linked to USAT’s ePort Connect Service. Merchant processor Square Inc. agreed to lease an entire 356,000-square-foot building in Oakland, Calif., where …

Mobile-commerce platform PredictSpring said it developed a mobile-shopping app and store-associate app that provides a buy-online, pickup-in-store function for BevMo!, a specialty-beverage retailer. Synchrony Financial announced it will provide private-label credit card services to Qurate Retail Group, parent company of HSN, beginning in 2019. Synchrony also extended existing deals with …

E-commerce technology provider 3dcart said its merchants can now offer Bread, an online financing service for consumer purchases, to their shoppers. Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said consumers can redeem rewards points instantly at the pump at approximately 13,400 Shell stations nationwide through a new agreement between FIS and …

Atom Tickets released a skill for Amazon Alexa, the retailer’s voice-assistant technology. Users can learn what movies are playing nearby and buy tickets using voice commands. The skill is integrated with Amazon Pay. Extend, a digital distribution platform for credit cards, registered with the Visa Ready program for business solutions, …

An affiliate of Elliott Management Corp., a hedge fund that is trying to acquire remote deposit capture software provider Mitek Systems Inc. through a portfolio company, plans to nominate seven director candidates at Mitek’s 2019 shareholder meeting, Mitek reported in a regulatory filing. The meeting date and location hasn’t been …

Thales’s proposed all-cash acquisition of rival Gemalto received merger-control regulatory clearance by the European Commission. Effective immediately, the clearance is conditioned on Thales’s agreement to divest its general-purpose hardware security modules business worldwide. The deal still must clear regulatory hurdles in five other countries, including the United States. Bluefin Payment …