Consumers wielding smart phones and tablets put their PayPal accounts to work over the just-passed holiday-shopping weekend. PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc. until its anticipated spinoff in 2015, says its global mobile-payments volume increased 62% on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, over the same day in 2013. …

  Parking-garage operator SP Plus Corp. says card readers at 17 garages it operates were hacked this fall, with one breach extending back to April. Chicago-based SP Plus says the company that provides and maintains the payment card systems in the 17 garages—10 are in Chicago, three in Evanston, Ill., …

  The 870-page tome of proposed rules issued Nov. 13 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to govern prepaid cards may end up benefitting the top prepaid card issuers, says securities-rating agency Fitch Ratings. The regulations would require so-called “Know Before You Owe” disclosures and aim to improve consumers’ access to account …

  Merchant-services provider Swipely Inc. says it is now managing more than $4 billion in annual sales generated by its restaurant, hospitality, and retail clients, representing a four-fold increase over 2013, the company says. Providence, R.I.-based Swipely chief executive Angus Davis says the company’s three-pronged sales approach helps. In addition …

  Consumers walking around stores with their smart phones in hand often send a potentially troublesome signal to many retailers. The shoppers could be shopping an online retailer’s site while using the brick-and-mortar merchant’s store as a showroom. It’s a phenomenon that Las Vegas-based OrderWithMe Inc. says it can help …

  Mobile payments in Canada only garner 2% of all consumer purchases, finds a study from research firm GfK. But that does not signal the low adoption rate will continue. Only 21% of Canadian shoppers, defined as those who have shopped in one of 15 product categories in the past …

  Bitcoin wallet provider Coinbase has launched a “tip” button to enable Coinbase users to make micropayments to Web-site owners. San Francisco-based Coinbase says the button can be used to make one-click payments. The default amount is 300 bits, or about 10 cents this week. Senders can choose other amounts, …

  Digital wallets, especially when used for mobile commerce, are gaining increasing favor among consumers, finds a report from the Adobe Digital Index, a research unit of Adobe Systems Inc., which carries implications for acquirers and payment gateways. In a survey of 400 U.S. consumers, Adobe found that the number …

  Consumers are expected to use their smart phones and tablets to do more than check prices this holiday season. More of them expect to make mobile-commerce purchases—forecasted to reach $1.6 billion on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday— finds the Adobe Digital Index, a research service from Adobe …

  Pala Interactive LLC, an online gambling operator, will use payment-processing services from Optimal Payments Plc, Optimal announced this week. Online gambling revenue in the United States is forecasted to be $2.6 billion by 2017, according to one estimate. Another estimate, from Odobo and H2 Gambling Capital, forecasts $7.7 billion …