• Mobile-commerce technology provider Sionic Mobile launched a mobile-payment and loyalty app called Style Rewards for hair salons. The app was introduced in collaboration with Style Media22, an interactive digital-media agency for salon professionals.
• Mobile point-of-sale technology provider CardFlight agreed to offer its SwipeSimple EMV solution to merchant clients of Security Card Services.
• Payments provider TrustCommerce announced the availability of TC CardCurrent, its account-updating service for merchants that use card-on-file payments.
• Hotel keycard and gift and loyalty card manufacturer Plasticard Locktech International (PLI) said it acquired PSA, a manufacturer of closed-loop cards and provider of card-marketing services; the acquisition, whose price wasn’t disclosed, adds more than 300 employees to PLI and increases its production capacity to 1.6 billion cards per year from the current 1.1 billion.
• Meta Financial Group Inc.’s MetaBank subsidiary, a major prepaid card issuer, completed its previously announced acquisition of EPS Financial LLC.
• Auriemma Consulting Group released a report that found 77% of U.S. consumers with credit cards are familiar with PayPal and that 62% currently use it.
• Payment card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc. appointed Jay Arbabha chief technology officer; Arbabha most recently worked at IBM Corp. and also has held executive positions at Northrop Grumman, First Data, and Principal Financial Group.
• Merchant processor Square Inc. hired Hillary B. Smith as general counsel; Smith most recently was general counsel at YourPeople Inc.’s Zenefits, an insurer and human-resources software startup.