Three companies on Thursday released technology aimed at streamlining virtual cards, digital versions of familiar plastic credit cards that banks can issue to consumers and businesses. Switch Inc. unveiled a version of its Cardsavr card-on-file technology that issuers can integrate now. The new release automates the entry and updating chore …

Ever since Apple Pay launched in the fall of 2014, observers have questioned why the mobile-payment service hasn’t caught on with consumers. One possibility is that the service’s contactless capability remains foreign to most consumers. That could change next month, when Apple Inc. is expected to widen the range of …

The same force that decades ago hit the streets and made credit and debit card acceptance nearly universal is revving up in a nascent effort to do the same for cryptocurrency. Aliant Payment Systems, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based independent sales organization that has been marketing Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin acceptance …

Some 97% of Visa Inc.’s total U.S. payment volume stemmed from EMV chip cards in March, according to the card network’s latest periodic report on EMV’s progress in the United States. EMV volume totaled $70.7 billion, up from $4.8 billion in September 2015, the last full month before the country …

With each week that passes, the so-called unified buy button concept introduced by the major card networks last month takes on more definition, but despite all the discussion, the idea of an online checkout shared by multiple payment networks remains too vague—and too futuristic—to suit some expert observers. “I keep …

The movie-ticketing app Atom Tickets has struck a deal with Landmark Theatres, said to be the country’s largest exhibitor of independent films, to add the company’s 53 theaters and 255 screens in 27 markets across the country. The deal will boost Atom Tickets’ coverage that includes more than 20,000 screens …

Financial institutions have been pushing real-time payments because they are supposed to be not only faster but also more cost-efficient. But now results of a global survey released Monday indicate merchants not only expect faster payments to be less expensive to accept, but also to displace the payment cards banks …

Apple Inc.’s move to create a new Apple Pay credit card with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may or may not help boost usage of the mobile-payments service, but one thing it is likely to do is cement Apple’s ties with the thousands of banks that support the service, observers say. …

Ever since banks, merchants, and tech companies first introduced mobile services, they’ve looked for ways to entice more usage by streamlining the way consumers interact with little screens. Now Wells Fargo & Co. has decided to put frequently used payments services on the home screen of its mobile app, before …

Cyberthieves can use the payment credentials they steal to charge products to the people who are the legitimate owners of that data. That’s bad enough. But increasingly, these fraudsters are using the information they glean from data breaches to invent fresh identities, sometimes out of whole cloth, leaving credit card …