Acquiring

Backers of the so-called SegWit2x proposal to double block size for Bitcoin suspended the effort on Wednesday, citing a lack of “consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade.” The move, which would have occurred around Nov. 16, was an effort to increase transaction capacity for Bitcoin and relieve upward pressure on …

Hurricanes Irma and especially Maria devastated Puerto Rico-based payment processor Evertec Inc.’s business in September, and the company’s merchant business is in for a long recovery as the island struggles to restore electric power and other essential services to businesses and residences. In reviewing Evertec’s third-quarter results during a Tuesday …

Square Inc. is still losing money, but less so, and the company made it clear Wednesday its sights are firmly fixed on selling its products and services to larger merchants. “We’re not just about micro-merchants,” chief financial officer Sarah Friar told equity analysts in a conference call to discuss the …

Global Payments Inc. was one of the first merchant acquirers to identify the payments opportunities in pairing up with independent software vendors and related firms that serve businesses with all manner of applications, and now those channels are bringing in 40% of revenues, chief executive Jeff Sloan said Wednesday. That …

NCR Corp. launched the NCR Silver Quantum point-of-sale system that features an integrated payment device with mobile wallet acceptance, a customer loyalty program, and a scanner that are loaded onto a Samsung Galaxy Tab A tablet. NCR Silver Quantum, in addition to the NCR Silver POS software, is the first …

USA Technologies Inc., which provides payment technology for unattended merchant locations, announced it has an $85 million cash and stock deal to acquire Cantaloupe Systems, a San Francisco-based software provider serving the vending-machine industry. Cantaloupe operates in the U.S., Canada, and several international markets, and its Seed Cloud applications include …

Consumers who want to use cash online can now load an Amazon Cash account at U.S. 7-Eleven Inc. stores by presenting cash and a personalized Amazon barcode to the cashier. Users can load between $15 and $500 in a single transaction, with no fees, 7-Eleven says. The company has nearly …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. confirmed Friday that it will settle its lawsuit against Visa Inc. over EMV debit card transaction routing. That news comes one day after the two leaders in their respective industries settled lawsuits they filed against each other stemming from the massive and still-ongoing credit card interchange litigation …

Apple Pay users have more than doubled over the past 12 months, Apple Inc. reported, without citing a specific number. Yearly transactions have increased 330%, and more than 5 million U.S. merchant locations will be accepting the mobile-payment service by the end of the year, the company said during an …

Encryption specialist Bluefin Payment Systems said it will provide encryption services to clients of payments provider Accepta LLC. A report from processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) found 25 real-time payments systems in operation globally, up from 19 last year and more than twice the number in 2013. Another …