A new set of security protocols to better safeguard online connections within the financial-services industry is in the offing. Securing and trusting these connections is a critical piece of the payments infrastructure. Experts say the underlying standards they are built on—called public key infrastructure—need updating. That’s why the Accredited Standards …

Online shopping on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, increased 19.6% year-over-year, while in-store shopping that day increased 4.2%, according to Adobe Digital Insights and Fiserv Inc., respectively. Consumers did not disappoint in early holiday shopping results. Adobe Digital Insights, a unit of San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Inc., said consumers …

Expect more consumers to wield their smart phones for their holiday shopping this year. Fully 70% of consumers in the Deloitte 2019 Holiday Retail Survey plan to make a holiday purchase using a smart phone. That’s up from 67% in 2018 and from 59% in 2017. A separate Visa Inc. …

PayPal Holdings Inc. is betting big on its strategy of boosting its e-commerce presence with its approximately $4 billion acquisition of Honey Science Corp., a technology platform that helps consumers find offers and deals on popular e-commerce sites. Announced Wednesday afternoon, the deal envisions Honey tapping into the more than …

In its first full quarter as a public company, Repay Holdings Corp. said its card-payment volume of $2.6 billion was a 40% increase over the 2018 third quarter. Payments providers Usio Inc. and Net Element Inc. also reported their earnings results. Atlanta-based Repay, which acquired APS Payments and TriSource Solutions …

With Facebook Inc.’s launch Tuesday of Facebook Pay, the social-media giant may feel somewhat assured that many of its 1.6 billion daily users will at least try the new wallet when making purchases in one of the company’s social networks. But that does not mean the rest of the payments …

Research firm eMarketer Inc. forecasted that 2019 U.S. holiday sales will surpass $1 trillion in value for the first time. Cyber Monday, the Monday following Thanksgiving, is expected to be the biggest online shopping day and could approach $10 billion in sales. With Thanksgiving falling on the last Thursday of …

Prepaid-program manager Green Dot Corp. will launch a marketing campaign with talk-show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres’s celebrity will be used to promote Green Dot Bank, Steve Streit, Green Dot founder and chief executive, said during a conference call with analysts Thursday. DeGeneres is host of the popular TV …

Consumers that want to pay cash for their Amazon.com Inc. purchases now have another option in the St. Louis area. Save A Lot launched the ability for consumers to use Amazon PayCode, the e-retailer’s cash-payment service, at several Save A Lot locations in the grocer’s hometown. It expects to expand …

Digital wallets and other forms of digitized payments may be poised to take over the most-favored position for some consumers. Sixty-six percent of consumers, if offered rewards, discounts, and cash-back incentives similar to those offered by credit cards, would switch to alternative ways to pay, finds the 2019 edition of …