With hopes of providing merchants with a lower-cost network to make and accept electronic payments, startup MakeCents announced Friday a test of its blockchain-based platform. New York City-based MakeCents says its decentralized platform is designed to “disrupt the $420 trillion global payments infrastructure by leveraging its blockchain technology to connect …

Walmart Inc. shoppers apparently aren’t as loyal to the giant retailer’s own mobile-payment service as they are to Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay. That’s one takeaway from the latest Mobile Pay Tracker from Auriemma Consulting Group. New York City-based ACG found that Walmart shoppers who use Apple Pay and have a …

The days of dipping a card into an ATM to withdraw cash may not be as frequent for even more consumers with the announcement Wednesday that Co-Op Financial Services launched its Cardless Cash Access service. Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based Co-Op, a credit-union service organization, says the service can be used on …

Cross-border payment specialist PPRO Group raised $50 million in a funding round led by PayPal Holdings Inc., Citi Ventures, and HPE Growth Capital, the London-based company announced Monday. The funds will be used to expand internationally, including the United States, where it opened an Atlanta office earlier this year. PPRO …

What do diners want most when they go out to eat? Apparently, easy ordering and payment. That’s the big takeaway in the “Restaurant Digital Crossroads: The Race to Meet Guest Expectations” report released Thursday. Hassle-free ordering and payment are especially important to younger consumers, defined as those between 18 and 37 …

Maybe being number one in something isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. For instance, the United States leads the world in the per capita cost—$233—of a data breach, finds the “2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study: Global Overview,” released Wednesday. That figure bests Canada, at $202 per …

Expect more point-of-sale terminals equipped with near-field communication capability over the next four years as the market is forecasted to grow at a 15.6% compound annual growth rate through 2022, says Berg Insight, a Sweden-based research firm. By the end of 2017, POS terminal makers had shipped an estimated 24.7 …

Ethiopian Airlines, which flew more than 8.7 million passengers in 2017, will use the Cellpoint Mobile payment platform across its domestic and international operations for tickets and related transactions, Miami-based Cellpoint Mobile announced Sunday. In addition to common payment acceptance, the deal also will enable Ethiopian Airlines, which flies 100 …

LaterPay Inc. released its LaterPay button as a tool to decrease payment friction, especially for nonprofit organizations and journalism sites, the company announced Thursday. Munich-based LaterPay, which has a U.S. office in New York City, says the button is designed to be a low-friction way to enable consumers to make …

Merchants selling digital goods were dealt a heavy blow last year as the fraud rate for the category soared 167%, finds the Fraud Attack Index from online-fraud prevention specialist Forter and the Merchant Risk Council, a merchant group that addresses fraud prevention. Released Tuesday, the index also found that account …