A recent Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities’ advisory about potentially requiring independent sales organizations and processors to obtain money-transmitter licenses could pose problems for the payments industry. “It’s the wrong execution of the right idea,” Scott Talbott, senior vice president for government affairs at the Electronic Transactions Association, …

Samsung Pay, the mobile-payments service from Samsung Electronics Co. Inc., has added 14 Visa-MasterCard payment card issuers. In addition, Verizon Wireless, the holdout mobile carrier that was absent from Samsung Pay’s launch a month ago, is now supporting the service, a Samsung executive said Wednesday. “We’re expanding our ecosystems,” Thomas …

Known for its iPad-based point-of-sale system, Revel Systems said Friday it is making a mobile-commerce app available that merchants can use with their own brands. The app—available now for iOS and Android devices—enables merchants to more easily allow consumers to access product information, check loyalty data, place orders, and pay …

Top performing merchant acquirers make more than 103 basis points per transaction from merchants that process with them. That’s the finding from a survey of 37 independent sales organizations and acquirers conducted by Adil Consulting, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments-advisory firm. The median is 64 basis points. The top 20% of …

By Kevin Woodward None can escape the notoriety of mobile payments, but most consumers apparently are able to ignore the allure of using the smart phone-based technology. Only 18% of consumers use their mobile phones to make at least one payment a week, finds the 2015 North America Consumer Digital …

  First Data Corp.’s push to transform itself into a nimbler and more responsive payments processor continues on, with changes in its internal structure and approach to servicing merchants leading the way, says a First Data executive. In an interview Thursday with Digital Transactions News, Dan Charron, First Data executive …

  With a mission to offer as many free, or cheap, money-exchange services as possible, Uphold, a virtual funds and commodity platform, on Wednesday launched the first of a four-phase effort to expand its reach among consumers, merchants, charitable organizations and software developers. Uphold, the new name of Bitreserve, an …

Finding more ways to incorporate near-field communication (NFC) technology into everyday objects could eventually mean more payments. At least that’s the future as envisioned by panelists at the NFC Solutions Summit this week in Phoenix. Sponsored by the Smart Card Alliance, the conference examined ways NFC technology, which enables wireless …

  Consumer confusion, lack of standards for offers, and splintered merchant acceptance continue to impede mobile-wallet adoption among consumers, but they are not expected to thwart the long-term prospects for the payments model, suggested panelists on Wednesday at the NFC Solutions Summit in Phoenix. Near-field communication (NFC) technology not only can …

  Venue operator Live Nation Entertainment will install more than 4,400 fixed and mobile point-of-sale devices supplied by cloud-based  mobile point-of-sale maker Appetize in 32 venues, Appetize announced Tuesday. Four-year-old Appetize says this is its largest single POS deployment yet. About half of the devices in the Live Nation deal …