There’s much more to PayPal Holdings Inc. than Venmo, but that’s where the payments industry’s spotlight has shone in recent months. So on Wednesday, PayPal for the first time revealed how many active users its peer-to-peer transfer service has: 40 million plus. Venmo users rang up $21 billion in volume …

Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) late on Tuesday said it has now deployed “thousands” of its new Vital point-of-sale devices, which were launched in January. The product is “showing strong out-of-the-gate momentum,” said M. Troy Woods, TSYS’s chief executive, during a call with stock analysts to discuss the Columbus, Ga.-based …

Blockchain startup Bleumi Inc. announced Tuesday it has launched two services, Bleumi Pay and Bleumi Invoice, for cross-border remittances. Bleumi Pay, a gateway that works with so-called stablecoins to avoid the price volatility afflicting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The gateway will allow businesses and merchants to receive payments via Web site, …

Not all security breaches are designed to steal data. Instead, an increasing number these days are programmed to hold data hostage. And the sums demanded by the malefactors behind so-called ransomware attacks are rising fast. The average ransom in the first quarter came to $12,762, up 89% just from the …

In a sign that at least some U.S. wireless carriers haven’t given up on their ambitions in mobile payments, T-Mobile US Inc. on Thursday launched its T-Mobile Money service nationwide. But the service, which began as a pilot in November, goes beyond payments offerings to include some traditional banking services …

In advance of a key European regulation taking effect late this summer, San Francisco-based payments provider Stripe Inc. has acquired Touchtech Payments, a developer of authentication software. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed. Founded in 2014, Dublin-based Touchtech specializes in code that establishes customer identities for financial …

A surge in gift transactions on the Zelle person-to-person payment network has led JPMorgan Chase & Co. to roll out a feature allowing its mobile users to send digital gift cards. The new service, announced Monday, is available now for both mobile and online customers and enables more than 60 …

Two the nation’s biggest banks on Friday reported gains in card volume, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. showing double-digit increases in merchant-processing volume as well as card spending. Chase’s first-quarter merchant volume totaled $356.5 billion, a 13% increase over the same period in 2018. The massive Chase Merchant Services unit …

It turns out that the people closest to computer technology are far from sold on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Some 80% of developers, data scientists, and engineers surveyed earlier this year indicated they are not using blockchain at all. Just 13% said they are using non-currency applications of the technology, while …

Which payment method holds the dubious distinction of racking up the fastest growth in fraud last year? According to the latest annual fraud report from the Association for Financial Professionals, it’s debits and credits on the automated clearing house network. In fact, the ACH was the only payment method examined …