By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews As payments firms seek to commercialize emerging online marketplaces, they’re starting to leverage automated routines that promise to overturn traditional transaction methods and, just possibly, deliver on the long-sought goal of so-called frictionless payments. This week, both MasterCard Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. announced new initiatives …

• Chip card standards body EMVCo issued 3-D Secure 2.0, its update of the 3-D Secure technology for protecting e-commerce transactions. The new specification supports app-based purchases on mobile and other devices and will streamline the checkout process in order reduce transaction abandonment, EMVCo says. • MasterCard Inc. announced plans to …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Consumers with Samsung Pay mobile-wallet accounts will be able to use them as a payment method for online transactions thanks to a partnership with Samsung Pay to shop using Masterpass starting in 2017. To use the service, consumers select the Masterpass button on a participating merchant’s e-commerce …

• Visa Inc. and chip maker and software provider Intel Corp. announced a two-pronged security initiative, one of which aims to protect the growing Zelle person-to-person payments network, to which Fiserv is providing a link. Zelle is expected to launch early next year. • In related news, Fifth Third Bank …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews You thought Visa Inc. was big already? Boosted by Visa Europe and solid growth in the U.S. and some other regions, the world’s largest card network’s credit and debit card payment volume grew 47% in the quarter ended Sept. 30. Foster City, Calif.-based Visa Inc. on Monday …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews With consumers spending more and more time on retailers’ shopping apps, it was only a matter of time before merchants with proprietary charge card programs began offering a digitized version of those cards within their apps. On Monday, that time arrived as store card processor Synchrony …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews In its short lifetime, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already established itself as one of the most aggressive regulators confronting the financial-services industry, including payments services. But in a speech on Sunday the director of the 5-year-old federal agency sounded a number of conciliatory notes …

• Visa Inc. announced five key person-to-person payment integrations for its Visa Direct faster-payments system, which requires Visa issuers to make funds available to cardholders within 30 minutes. These include: Jack Henry & Associates for JHA Payment Solutions, Fidelity National Information Services for its People Pay service, Stripe Inc. for …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews It’s in its infancy, but the Internet of Things, or IoT, will represent a $14 billion revenue opportunity globally by 2020 for payments firms smart enough to capitalize on it, according to research firm IDC Financial Insights. “That is a very conservative estimate,” James Wester, research director …

• Merchant acquirer Worldpay brought its Worldpay Total integrated payments platform to the U.S.; Worldpay introduced the platform in the United Kingdom in November 2014 and extended it to European e-commerce merchants earlier this year. • U.S. Bancorp, owner of merchant acquirer Elavon, posted $412 million in merchant-processing revenues in …