By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Can First Data Corp. shake its reputation as the aircraft carrier of the payments industry, a behemoth processor that is anything but nimble? It can, according to a new report from a securities firm. “First Data becoming increasingly competitive,” says the headline in the report by Chicago-based …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Buoyed by seismic political and financial events, the Bitcoin digital currency is picking up momentum in both its value and its adoption. Blockchain, a U.K. company that offers Bitcoin services, last week celebrated having issued 10 million wallets since its founding in 2011. That’s a doubling in …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews New York-based iPayment Holdings Inc. has named O.B. Rawls IV chief executive and president and charged the veteran payments executive with guiding the payments company’s plans to increase sales . Rawls, whose prior experience includes First Data Corp., also joins the iPayment board of directors. He has …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Perhaps when he’s not tweeting, President-elect Donald J. Trump will get around to reading the letter the Electronic Transactions Association sent to him Monday outlining payments-industry proposals for Congress and federal regulators once Trump’s administration takes over in January. “ETA encourages your administration to create a policy …

• The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued final approval of a $37.5 million settlement in a class-action case, Reyes v. Zions First National Bank, attorneys for the class announced. In the case, plaintiffs alleged Zions Bank and a former payment-processing subsidiary knowingly handled payments for fraudulent …

Terminal maker Ingenico Group introduced its first Android-based mobile point-of-sale payment device, the APOS. The portable terminal includes a front and rear camera and accepts payments based on EMV, mag-stripe, and near-field communication. Cubic Transportation Systems announced it has been awarded a $4.8 million contract modification from the Maryland Transit …

• Payments-services provider ACI Worldwide Inc. said it expects the rate of attempted online fraud in the United States during the holiday shopping season will increase 43% over the same period last year, based on transaction data it has seen so far. This increase follows U.S. adoption of EMV cards at the …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Monday officially launched its Chase Pay mobile app, announcing users can now download the wallet and use it to pay at more than 7,500 Starbucks Corp. outlets and at almost 1,400 Best Buy Co. Inc. stores to start with. The app, …

• ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics plc announced an expanded relationship with Carnival Cruise Line that adds Cardtronics ATMs to the crew areas of Carnival’s 25-ship fleet and makes Cardtronics Carnival’s exclusive ATM provider for both guests and crew. Cardtronics will have two ATMs for passengers and two for crew …

By Peter Lucas @DTPaymentNews A combination of better fraud-detection technologies and stronger consumer-authentication strategies is helping e-commerce merchants hold the line on fraud losses, a study from payments consultancy Mercator Advisory Group says. This is the case even though more criminals are practicing their dark art in the online channel …