Acquiring

The Visa Inc. transaction machine continued to spit out profits in the payment network’s final quarter of fiscal 2017, but chief executive Alfred F. Kelly doesn’t want anyone to think he ignores competitive threats such as the rise of China’s Alipay or real-time payment services from other companies. “I think …

The Western Union Co. early next year will start allowing money transfers via Mastercard Send, a service that allows people to send money within seconds from a debit card to another person’s debit card, including non-Mastercard cards. Senders can also fund transfers with credit cards or bank accounts, but must …

Facebook Inc. has joined Visa Inc.’s Digital Enablement Program, giving the social-networking giant access to tokenization services globally. First Data Corp. said it will add UnionPay International acceptance to its merchant network, enabling UnionPay cardholders traveling as tourists in the United States to use their cards in stores and online. Eventually, …

Private-equity firm GTCR, which bought Sage Payment Solutions in August from its British parent company The Sage Group plc, appointed veteran independent sales organization executive Joe Kaplan as chief executive of the merchant processor, and also announced that it would invest $350 million to support Sage. Kaplan is the former …

Almost as many merchants—65%—seek to increase transaction volumes by reducing identity verification thresholds as do those—74%—that try to reduce fraudulent transactions through more effective verification methods. That quandary surfaced in the “Lost in Transaction Vol. II” report released Thursday by Paysafe Group plc. With a focus on fraud, including consumer …

First Data Corp. made it official: it is acquiring merchant processor BluePay Holdings Inc. for $760 million in cash. BluePay processes $19 billion annually for 77,000 merchants and is integrated into more than 450 software platforms. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. First Data inadvertently …

Mastercard Inc. is doing away with a rule requiring merchants to get signatures for transactions made with its credit and debit cards in the United States and Canada. Announced early Thursday, Mastercard’s rule change goes into effect April 13, 2018, allowing issuers, merchants, and processors time to make adjustments, though …

Issuers, merchants, and processors all share the same dilemma when attempting to authenticate an online identity. They are bedeviled by personally identifiable information easily accessible to criminals that they can use to spoof authentic consumers. In response, Visa Inc. on Thursday announced the Visa ID Intelligence service, which it says …

From the Oops Department: First Data Corp. early Thursday quickly removed from its Web site an inadvertently posted press release saying it had a deal to acquire independent sales organization BluePay Holdings Inc. “First Data confirmed that it is currently in discussions with BluePay with respect to a potential transaction, …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is making a big move into the world of independent software vendors and payment facilitators with a planned acquisition of WePay Inc. that the nation’s largest bank announced late Tuesday. Redwood City, Calif.-based WePay develops payments-related application programming interfaces (APIs) for software developers to put into …