By John Stewart n Electronic processing of payments that originate as paper checks dropped dramatically in the second quarter on the automated clearing house network, while payments that start out as electronic items grew briskly, according to the latest report from NACHA, the ACH’s governing body. n The decline in …

By John Stewart n The inexorable economics of the Durbin Amendment are beginning to make themselves felt in the vibrant business of network-branded gift cards. n JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of a handful of major banks that offer Visa- and MasterCard-branded gift cards, this spring stopped selling its Visa …

In a sign of the increasing significance of mobile commerce in the U.S. economy, comScore Inc. reported on Tuesday that remote m-commerce sales totaled $10.6 billion in the first half of the year, or about 10% of total online volume, including desktop e-commerce. ComScore forecasts that online spending on mobile …

The increasing popularity of depositing checks via mobile devices could end up saving financial institutions offering the service a good deal of money, according to a recent study. But, while cost savings from mobile check capture are real, there are offsetting factors, says an expert not connected with the study. …

PayPal Inc.’s ambitious plan to achieve what its parent company’s chief executive calls “ubiquity” in in-store acceptance took a key step forward this week when news emerged that Mercury Payment Systems has become the first independent sales organization to market PayPal’s mobile wallet to small brick-and-mortar merchants. Durango, Colo.-based Mercury, …

Zach Harvey says it’s too hard to get Bitcoins, so next month his new company will start shipping its first machines intended to let ordinary consumers exchange cash for the controversial digital currency. The company, Lamassu Inc., is billing the tabletop device as “the world’s first Bitcoin ATM” and says …

Looking to attract more small businesses that just want to process online payments, e-commerce kingpin Amazon.com Inc. is rolling out a new, streamlined version of its 6-year-old Amazon Payments service. The new platform, which includes a simplified application programming interface, front-end widgets, and a testing “sandbox,” minimizes integration time by …

The acquiring business, already fraught with rivalry, became even more competitive on Wednesday with an announcement from daily-deals giant Groupon Inc. that it will supply traditional point of sale terminals to merchants as part of a new initiative under its payments division. The Chicago-based company, which last year jumped into …

Shopify Inc. hopes to lure small online sellers by the thousands to its e-commerce platform by making the typically vexatious business of taking payments as easy as possible. On Monday, the Ottawa-based company announced Shopify Payments, a service that lets Web merchants sign up to accept a broad range of …

With a federal judge’s crucial decision only weeks away, a company formed to help merchants collect their share of the massive credit card interchange settlement is recruiting independent sales organizations to reach eligible businesses. Baltimore-based Brownstone Recovery Group has signed up more than 10 ISOs so far, according to Scott …