EMVCo., the international standards body for chip cards based on the EMV specification, is fast-tracking a specification for card-number tokenization in the wake of recently disclosed data breaches at major retailers, including the theft of card and other information on 110 million customers of Target Corp. The chip card organization …

Close to 60% of ISOs and other processors are reporting compliance rates of 40% or better among their portfolios of so-called Level 4 merchants, up about five percentage points from a year ago, according to a survey released by Atlanta-based security-solutions vendor ControlScan Inc. and the Merchant Acquirers’ Committee, a …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against Mercury Payment Systems LLC alleging deceptive pricing by Mercury allowed it to lure scores of merchants away from Heartland and attract prospects to Mercury that had been weighing the two companies for payment-processing services. Heartland’s suit, filed in U.S. …

In the wake of the recently discovered data breaches at major merchants like Target Corp., Neiman Marcus Group, and Michaels Stores, much of the talk in the payments industry has focused on whether more advanced card technology, like chip cards, might have mitigated the risk of fraud. But one ambitious …

Having been for years at the center of speculation on the matter, Apple Inc. may finally be readying a foray into mobile payments, according to news reports over the weekend. Citing knowledgeable sources, The Wall Street Journal Friday night said online-services chief Eddy Cue is heading up the effort at …

The recently disclosed data breaches at Target Corp. and Neiman Marcus Group have breathed new life into an industry dispute over how to account for network choice in routing EMV debit transactions. The ATM Industry Association on Tuesday issued a statement critical of MasterCard Inc. for earlier this month declaring …

Against a backdrop of knotty problems besetting the U.S. introduction of EMV, a financial-services standards body is investigating the potential for a set of non-proprietary chip card rules for EMV debit routing. n The group also broke up into subgroups during the meeting, which was held Dec. 9-10 at the …

In a bid to streamline its payment process for online retailers, PayPal Inc. is testing a service that lets users pay and check out without leaving the merchant’s site. Dubbed “in-context checkout,” the service, which is designed to work on tablets and mobile phones as well as laptops and desktops, …

Shopify Inc.’s recent move to offer its merchants a mobile point-of-sale application marks yet another entry in a market that has filled up fast with competitors ranging from PayPal Inc. to Square Inc. and dozens in between. “You would think we’d reached everybody [with mobile POS products], but we haven’t,” …

Noting the success Starbucks Corp. has had with its prepaid card and mobile app, Mercury Payment Systems LLC figures the small merchants it serves would like to create a similar program but lack Starbucks’s considerable resources. To bring such a program within reach, the Durango, Colo.-based merchant processor this week …