Vantiv Inc. took the unusual step this week of filing a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission to dispute a research firm’s report about its merchant pricing. The payment processor says the report “claims Vantiv deceives merchants by marking up interchange fees.” The report about Vantiv’s allegedly high and …

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group announced Thursday that it plans to buy Stockholm-based Bambora Group from Nordic Capital for €1.5 billion ($1.73 billion). The acquisition will put under Ingenico’s roof a fast-growing international payments provider that gets 90% of its revenues on a recurring basis. Stockholm-based Bambora counts 110,000 businesses …

U.S. Bancorp on Wednesday reported modestly higher results in its merchant-acquiring unit for the second quarter, while ATM manufacturer Diebold Nixdorf Inc. posted a $31 million loss after lowering its financial projections for the year. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp is the parent company of U.S. Bank and Elavon, the fifth-largest merchant …

Some 19% of consumers participating in a recent survey said they have made a product purchase through Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo or a similar voice-controlled device within the past year. The finding is noted in the Future of Retail 2017 report from Chicago-based Walker Sands Communications, a digital marketing services and …

Just over 6 billion payment cards now bear the UnionPay logo, and in 2016 the Chinese network accounted for 43% of all general-purpose credit and debit cards in the world, up from 41% in 2015, according to new findings from London-based Retail Banking Research. RBR estimates the worldwide payment card …

Unattended payments services provider USA Technologies Inc. announced late Friday that it plans to sell $34.5 million in stock to finance growth initiatives, including possible acquisitions and international expansion. Malvern, Pa.-based USAT filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission giving details about the proposed sale, for which …

Israelis are much more likely to use mobile-banking apps and mobile wallets than Americans, but at least Americans are less inclined to use cash than Germans, according to a recent international survey of consumer usage of financial technology. The May survey of 5,860 adults in the United States, United Kingdom, …

The stock market has had a pretty good run so far this year, but shares of publicly traded payments firms are doing even better than the overall market. A group of thirty payment-related stocks tracked by Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. posted a mean return of 23.86% for the first …

The pending $145 million acquisition of point-of-sale terminal and equipment distributor POS Portal by ScanSource Inc. will bring together two companies that provide merchants with the equipment they need at checkout counters and back offices, but which have little overlap in their customer bases and distribution channels. Founded in 2000, …

Never mind that the Democratic administration that created Operation Choke Point is gone, a Republican Congressman wants to be doubly-certain that the controversial program that tries to cut off payment services to fraudulent merchants dies. So he has proposals to kill Operation Choke Point in not one but two bills. In …