When Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. demonstrated their streamlined EMV technology at some West Coast groceries last month, the payments industry focused on the potential for speedier checkouts and happier cardholders. But another implication of Visa’s Quick Chip and MasterCard’s M/Chip Fast technology is that it could boost the number …

Slowly but surely, the big merchants that make up the stalled Merchant Customer Exchange LLC retailer consortium are finding their own way in mobile payments. The latest example is MCX stalwart CVS Health Corp., which in mid-August announced the launch of its CVS Pay mobile wallet. The Woonsocket, R.I.-based chain …

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By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Gift card marketers have dominated the holiday season and other gift-giving occasions in recent years, but now a card is coming to thousands of those checkout-lane racks that will let budding investors buy or give away shares of stock in a favorite company.

• Hotel operator Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants said its point-of-sale system at several of its properties was breached earlier this year, from Feb. 16 through July 7. Kimpton began its investigation after receiving a report on July 15 of unauthorized charges after consumers used their cards at the restaurant in …

The fraud bug struck debit card issuers last year, and the illness spared neither signature nor PIN-based varieties of debit. Researchers identified a big increase in skimming as part, but only one part, of the cause. According to the 2016 Debit Issuer Study commissioned by Discover Financial Services’ Pulse electronic …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews For drivers passing through the Chicago area, there’s now an app that will handle payment on the 292-mile-long ribbon of toll roads snaking through 12 counties in Northern Illinois. FastToll, from a Las Vegas-based developer called Pragmistic LLC, arrives just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, …

• Mobile-ticketing platform Atom Tickets announced its app now works with 200 more theaters in 40 new markets across the country, including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Denver, and Sacramento. Partners include AMC Theaters, Regal Cinemas, and Studio Movie Grill. • In related news, mobile-ticketing specialist ExtremeTix Inc. introduced a …

By Jim Daly @DTPaymentNews If there’s one thing about EMV chip card payments that always works, it’s their ability to elicit strong feelings from those in the payments industry. It happened once again on Wednesday, when attendees at the Mobile Payments Conference 2016 in Chicago met for a closing panel …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Consumers will use Apple Pay and Alphabet Inc.’s Android Pay online and in-app to make $8 billion in payments for digital and physical goods by 2018, almost 15 times more than the $540 million forecast for 2016, according to Juniper Research, a U.K.-based research firm. Juniper released …