Slowly but surely, a new version of the Bitcoin digital currency was emerging early Tuesday in what appeared to be the start of a hard fork in the Bitcoin code. The fork is expected to yield a parallel blockchain to support the new cryptocurrency, which is known as Bitcoin Cash. …

Month by month, U.S. merchants are steadily switching on EMV capability to accept chip cards, but often overlooked is how more small merchants are simply adding credit and debit card payments, whether chip-based or not. As a result, card payment volume at small merchants has risen almost 7% over the …

PayPal Holdings Inc. has changed in ways large and small since Dan Schulman took over as chief executive two years ago, but perhaps its biggest change is its willingness to embrace collaboration with financial institutions, payment networks, and others once seen as keen rivals. At least some vindication of that …

The number of payment facilitators is growing rapidly, with technology platforms and independent software vendors alike increasingly taking on the role. Yet confusion remains about just how a payment facilitator—or payfac, in industry parlance—differs from a conventional merchant acquirer or even from a marketplace. That confusion clouds the responsibilities payfacs …

Faster payments may be in the offing, according to the Federal Reserve, but that term refers to the speed of clearing and settlement. It doesn’t mean new payments methods will necessarily go mass market any more quickly. Take mobile payments, a form of digital value transfer based on smart phones …

Now that the Federal Reserve-sponsored Faster Payments Task Force has issued its final report calling for speedier payments everywhere in the United States by 2020, the really hard work can now begin, say some observers. Payments cleared and settled in near real time has long been a goal of many …

The Federal Reserve on Friday is releasing a report that calls for all American consumers and businesses to have, by 2020, the ability to receive faster payments. The ambitious goal is included in the final report of the Faster Payments Task Force, a Fed-sponsored group of more than 300 industry …

PayPal Holdings Inc. made it clear on Thursday it isn’t done striking deals with banks and other payments companies. Only days after announcing a major partnership agreement with Samsung Pay, PayPal now says it will work more closely with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the bank’s Chase Pay wallet. And …

In a deal that follows months of partnership agreements with other payments companies, PayPal Holdings Inc. on Monday said its PayPal service will become available as a payment method in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s Samsung Pay wallet. When it goes live, the link is expected to go a long way …

The overall value of the world’s most important digital currencies nose-dived over the weekend as developers and exchanges struggled with key questions related to transaction capacity, merchant acceptance, and other market dynamics. The 11 largest currencies by market capitalization lost 18% of their total value between midnight Friday and early …