Consumers in Tennessee shopping for car insurance from Direct Auto Insurance have a new option to select a policy and pay for it using the insurer’s Direct on the Spot kiosks. Set up in 18 Direct Auto Insurance locations, the kiosks are designed to broaden the insurer’s reach among …

Consumers shopping at apparel retailer J.Crew Group Inc.’s e-commerce site now can use MasterCard Inc.’s MasterPass digital wallet, marking yet another merchant signing on to the program. In October, retailers Beyond the Rack and PC World and travel companies LastMinute.com and Porter Airlines also began offering MasterPass on their Web sites. …

The impact of tablets and smart phones on payments is largely unfelt in bill payment with only $36 billion of the $2.1 trillion in annual bill payments made by these mobile devices, finds a new report from consultancy Javelin Strategy & Research. That equates to about 5% of U.S. consumers. …

Crowdfunding organizations that work with payment service provider WePay Inc., and have integrated WePay’s application programming interface into their Web sites, are creating $1.5 million in daily payments for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company. That is three times more than two years ago, WePay says. n WePay, founded in 2008, …

  USConnect, a food-service network, has ordered 50,000 ePort vending-machine payment devices from USA Technologies Inc., making it the largest single order ever, says Malvern, Pa.-based USA Technologies. EPort devices enable vending machines to accept credit and debit cards and contactless payments. USConnect will supply the devices to its network …

Will the world end for ATM owners on April 8? Not likely, but it could become less secure. That is the day Microsoft Corp. ends all support—including security updates—for Windows XP, a common operating system not only for PCs but also for ATMs. That has the ATM industry pondering a …

Prepaid and gift card provider Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. is further broadening its reach beyond supermarket gift card malls with its deal to offer gift card services within PayPal Inc.’s digital wallet and its pending acquisition of InteliSpend Prepaid Solutions, which offers corporate incentives and consumer promotion products. Announced Wednesday, …

  American Express Co. cardholders for the first time can use their rewards points at the point of sale when they pay for rides in New York City taxis that use VeriFone Systems Inc. taxi point-of-sale services, AmEx said Monday. Cardholders can use their points in more than 7,000 New …

Intellectual-property company Unwired Planet Inc. is suing Square Inc. alleging Square’s mobile-payments technologies infringe on three of its patents, Unwired Planet announced Monday. The suit asserts that mobile point-of-sale provider Square infringes on patents for wireless transactions and location-based services as used in Square Wallet, and location-based notifications as used …

By Kevin Woodward Person-to-person and mobile payments company Dwolla Corp. is ending support for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies effective Oct. 28, Dwolla announced on Friday. Less than 0.1% of Dwolla’s merchants use virtual currencies, Des Moines, Iowa-based Dwolla says in a statement. “Dwolla has notified the few affected merchants …