By John Stewart n If, as the saying goes, cash is king, it’s clinging stubbornly to its throne. Despite the emergence of e-commerce and the secular rise of payment cards around the world, cash usage is growing nearly as fast globally as cashless payments, according to a report released this …

By John Stewart While many observers might argue the U.S. payments market has plenty of mobile-wallet entries for the time being, a U.K. startup called Yoyo Wallet figures there’s room for one more. London-based Yoyo, which launched with university cafeterias nearly two years ago and has expanded to catering operations …

2016 could be an auspicious year for mobile payments growth. That’s if a forecast from eMarketer Inc. proves correct. The New York-based research firm predicts that the number of consumers making mobile payments at the point of sale with smart phones will hit 37.5 million in 2016, a 61.6% increase …

There have been IPOs galore in the payment industry of late and merchant acquirer TransFirst is in the dock, and the acquisitions of independent sales organizations by bigger processors continues unabated. But there hasn’t been an acquisition of a big, publicly held payment processor by another in some time. That …

By Steve Norell I started in the acquiring industry approximately 20 years ago, and during those 20 years have seen and heard just about everything one can imagine about the way our products and services are marketed. That’s especially true when it comes to deceptive and fraudulent practices. During those …

By John Stewart Ever since the launch of Apple Pay more than a year ago, mobile wallets have followed a pattern of recruiting financial institutions to enable their network-branded credit and debit cards to work in the wallet apps. But retailers are getting in on this action, as well, with …

By John Stewart It was bad, but it could have been much worse. Just as the celebrated Cyber Monday online-shopping frenzy was gearing up to full blast, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s payment service, a major processor for e-commerce, began hiccupping. Merchants reported problems with processing orders and customers complained about long …

Visa Inc. on Tuesday reported U.S. EMV chip card statistics for October, the first month in which the payment card networks’ EMV liability shifts for point-of-sale transactions took effect. The numbers show EMV’s footprint is still small, but growing rapidly. There are now 180.6 million Visa-branded chip cards in the …

By Kevin Woodward The City Attorney for San Francisco has filed suit in California Superior Court against American Express Co., alleging the card brand continues to restrain merchants from steering consumers to other payment options. Filed Nov. 6, the suit seeks $2,500 per violation, which City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera …

By John Stewart In the wake of the arrival of EMV chip cards and ahead of the holiday shopping rush, the Shazam debit network has launched a mobile feature that lets cardholders disable their debit cards should they be lost or stolen. While networks like Discover Financial Services have advertised …