With three processor megamergers having closed in 2019, the value of firms involved in handling and managing electronic payments has seldom been clearer. But further evidence emerged this week with news of Stripe Inc.’s latest funding round, which valued the San Francisco-based payments-technology company at fully $35 billion. Indeed, at …

It was probably only a matter of time before the gig economy embraced barbering. A New York City-based startup called Shortcut on Monday announced it was starting its national rollout with an extension of its app-based haircut and hairstyling service to Philadelphia.  Calling itself “the Uber of haircutting and barbering,” …

With card-based transit payments picking up steam in the United States, a key Mastercard Inc. executive said Thursday that 22% of the network’s physical-world transactions globally were contactless as of the end of 2018. The time to complete a contactless transaction is down to 0.4 seconds, added Ajay Bhalla, president …

The Libra Association announced Wednesday it has filed a request with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) for a ruling that would clarify Libra’s status and that of the Libra coin. The association also said it plans to file an application with FINMA for a license to operate as …

Speedier funding of merchant accounts has become a key part of the faster-payments trend as sellers seek ways to gain a competitive edge, and on Tuesday JPMorgan Chase & Co. entered the fray with a same-day deposit service for merchants that bank with Chase. The new service, which is being …

Cyber threat intelligence provider Check Point Research disclosed this week what it says is a flaw in some Android smart phones that enables hackers to send bogus messages that trick users into entering malicious settings that could, among other things, route traffic through a proxy server controlled by the hacker. …

Small merchants are often seen as threatened by e-commerce giants like Amazon.com Inc. that can deliver products to consumers in some cases hours after the order is placed. But it turns out local businesses across the country still do big business on the eve of major occasions like Christmas and …

Shoppers around the world value privacy and security most when buying online, and are most likely to abandon a shopping cart simply because they’ve changed their mind about buying the product—not so much because of factors like long delivery times or non-acceptance of preferred payment methods. These are among the …

The imminent arrival of the NFL season, coupled with a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that leaves legalized sports betting up to the states, could sack payments firms’ efforts to control fraud, observers warn. The professional football season kicks off Sept. 5 and is widely expected to draw strong …

(This story has been updated to include a statement from Square). Square Inc. is often seen as the exemplar of technology that lets small merchants process card transactions via a simple reader linked to a mobile device. But now a rival point-of-sale technology provider has sued Square alleging that the …