If Square Inc. has made one thing clear in recent months, it’s that the company is determined to tie together two worlds most payments companies see as distinct: consumers on the one hand, and merchants on the other. That strategy took another step forward last month with Square’s announcement that …
Read More »Phishing Attacks Are Booming Even as They Are Getting Harder to Detect
Fueled by such scams as business email compromise, phishing frauds are staging a dramatic comeback. The total number of attacks reached 266,387 in the third quarter, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a security-industry organization that tracks the crime. That’s the highest level of phishing activity …
Read More »With A Big Worldpay Integration on Its Plate, FIS Is Likely to Look to ‘Tuck-in’ Deals, CEO Says
Having just swallowed the massive processor Worldpay Inc., Fidelity National Information Services Inc. will stay on the sidelines for a while when it comes to any more major acquisitions, its chief executive said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the combined company’s update indicated it is now on track to deliver more than $1 …
Read More »In Its Latest Gambit, Samsung Pay Enlists Curve’s All-in-One Card App
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has been seeking lately to differentiate its 4-year-old Samsung Pay mobile payments service, and on Monday came its latest gambit: an integration with Curve 1 LTD, a London-based startup that allows cardholders to consolidate all of their Mastercard and Visa cards into a single card or …
Read More »How Cash-Out Attacks Are Becoming the Next Big Worry for ATM Operators
Payments executives are starting to go public with concerns about a growing type of ATM fraud called the cash-out attack. Unlike the well-known, single-machine attack known as jackpotting, cash-out frauds allow criminals to gain access to multiple machines simultaneously at the network level. They then employ accomplices to visit these …
Read More »EMVCo Is Eyeing Some New Initiatives for EMV 3-D Secure 2.0
While much attention in the payments industry in recent months has focused on EMVCo’s Secure Remote Commerce (SRC) specification, another e-commerce spec from the standards body could be receiving some tweaks. These possible initiatives, which concern the EMV 3-D Secure specifications, include a way of adding users’ travel data to …
Read More »Synchrony Looks to Venmo’s Social Network To Help Market the P2P Service’s New Credit Card
PayPal Holdings Inc. and Synchrony Financial have been sparing about the details of a new credit card they plan to issue for PayPal’s Venmo peer-to-peer payment service, but on Monday a top Synchrony executive said the partners are counting on a key characteristic of Venmo to help market the new card. …
Read More »Nxgen, Payscape, And BluePay Canada Combine to Form a Processor Serving 25,000-Plus Merchants
This year’s mega-mergers in the transaction-processing business are now starting to generate some smaller spin-off deals. On Friday, two payments providers, Nxgen International and Payscape, said they have acquired a third, BluePay Canada. Terms of the deal were not announced, and an overarching name for the tripartite company has not …
Read More »How PayPal Plans to Leverage Its Newly Won Foothold in Online Payments in China
Top management at PayPal Holdings Inc. made it clear Wednesday the company will continue to hunt for acquisitions and intends to leverage its recently won clearance to acquire a 70% stake in China’s Guofubao Information Technology Co. Ltd., better known as GoPay. The Chinese venture, in which PayPal will become …
Read More »Online Merchants Are Starting to Deploy the Big Networks’ Common Buy Button
The long-awaited common buy button became a reality Tuesday with an announcement from the four major payment card networks that they have enabled the technology for three e-commerce merchants. Half a dozen more are expected to come online for the technology, called Secure Remote Commerce, by the end of the …
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