Canadian merchants now have a self-service tool to accept digital cash in stores via the MintChip Retail Payment Platform announced Wednesday by nanoPay Corp. NanoPay purchased MintChip, a digital currency developed by the Royal Canadian Mint, in 2016. “Since acquiring MintChip from the Royal Canadian Mint, we have focused on enhancing …

Visa Inc. is investing in Klarna, a Sweden-based payment processor that offers retail credit options for merchants, the card brand announced Tuesday. The intent, Visa says, is to develop a “future strategic partnership,” which appears to focus on Europe, though Klarna also operates in North America. Visa says the deal …

Apple Pay users visiting restaurants that are part of Punchh Inc.’s restaurant-loyalty service will be able to earn and redeem points when using the mobile-payment service, Punchh announced Thursday. Smashburger, Quiznos, and MOD Pizza will offer the Apple Pay/Punchh service later this year, Mountain View, Calif.-based Punchhsays. Apple Pay users …

A new survey from American Express Co. finds that 37% of consumers abandoned an online purchase because they have concerns about the security of the transaction. The 2017 American Express Digital Payments Survey, released Tuesday, also finds that, despite these concerns, 47% of consumers increased their e-commerce purchasing frequency in …

Canadian merchants that accept Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. credit cards soon will be able to add a surcharge to some transactions following a settlement reached this week. The settlement, which stems from a 2011 class-action lawsuit against Visa, Mastercard, and a number of card-issuing banks alleging excessive fees, calls …

The allure of subscription payments has captured the fancy of merchants and payments companies alike, but churn—the loss of a paying customer—may not only affect revenue, but hamper innovation, finds “The Art and Science of Reducing Involuntary Subscriber Churn” report released Wednesday by Digital River Inc. The report, which canvassed …

Consumers have a new way to get, and pay for, clean clothes with the debut of Washlava. As announced this week, Washlava offers consumers a smart-phone app they can use to reserve washers and dryers, and then pay for that use. The service, another indicator of the increasing incidence of …

As the U.S. payments system collectively ambles toward real-time payments, proponents will have to ensure its benefits outweigh those of existing expedited payments options. That’s one recommendation from the “Justifying Real-Time Payments in the United States” report released Tuesday by Maynard, Mass.-based Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The report examines the …

Finally, the rumors can stop. Sage Payment Solutions, the U.S. merchant-services arm of Sage Group plc, has been sold to GTCR LLC, a Chicago-based private-equity firm, for $260 million, GTCR announced Friday. Reports of a possible sale of the company, which counts approximately 100,000 merchants in its portfolio, originally surfaced …

First Data Corp. is hoping that its scale—it says it processes more than 2,800 transactions per second coming from more than 6 million merchants—will give its new Fraud Detect service an edge in thwarting fraudulent transactions. Announced Thursday, Fraud Detect uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, fraud scoring, cybersecurity intelligence, …