If it seems payments networks and processors are opening up to outside developers right and left these days, it may be because they are. “I don’t know when the tipping point was, but it feels like it was over the last 12 months,” says Ben Milne, chief executive of Des …

The idea of allowing consumers to use PIN debit cards to pay online merchants has been a tough sell in the payments business, but observers hope a deal announced Thursday may give it a much-needed boost. Processing kingpin First Data Corp. said it will acquire Acculynk Inc., a 9-year-old Atlanta-based …

Boston-based Flywire Corp., which for years has been processing tuition payments for students attending universities in foreign countries, is in the closing stage of a plan to enter the enormous market for processing payments between businesses in different countries. Pilots involving nine companies will run through the end of this …

Chatbots have been carrying out commerce on messenger apps only since last spring, yet already some observers are less than thrilled with the experience, says Zephrin Lasker, chief executive and cofounder of a startup called ShopChat. “Many companies are pursuing robot assistant chatbots to interact with people on messaging. These …

Alphabet Inc.’s Google Inc. unit converted its Android-based Google Wallet into a peer-to-peer payment service two years ago, and on Tuesday Google extended that service to Gmail, its popular email application. With the new feature, Gmail users can send and request money on Android phones, much as they have been …

The long downward spiral of Merchant Customer Exchange LLC reached another milestone Friday with JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s announcement that it is acquiring technology assets from MCX. The money-center bank will use the technology to help launch its fledgling Chase Pay mobile wallet with more merchants. Waltham, Mass.-based MCX is …

Facing a Congressional effort to overturn its recently released prepaid rule, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday issued a proposal to delay the rule’s effective date by six months. In the 16-page proposal, the agency suggests moving the effective date from Oct. 1 of this year to April 1, …

All eyes in the person-to-person payments business may be on Venmo these days, but a few tantalizing numbers released last week by JPMorgan Chase & Co. could indicate that a new, bank-controlled payments service set to launch this year will literally give PayPal Holdings Inc.’s P2P app a run for …

When the nation’s automated clearing house network introduced same-day settlement in September, it was only a matter of time before an application programming interface became available to simplify faster clearing. On Monday, that day arrived with Dwolla Inc.’s announcement that it was commercializing a same-day ACH API. The code, which …

The restaurant industry has become a focal point for mobile payments, what with efforts to tie payments to technology like mobile loyalty, order-ahead, and delivery apps to appeal to deal-seeking, time-starved diners. Now comes news that startups offering restaurant technology are consistently attracting financing exceeding half a billion dollars annually—a …