Credit Cards

Boosted by its $1.05 billion acquisition of the big independent sales organization and merchant processor Cayan LLC in January, payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) saw its merchant revenues rise nearly 22% in the first quarter. TSYS’s Merchant Solutions segment posted net revenues of $317.4 million, a 21.8% increase …

Contactless point-of-sale debit and credit card transactions are barely a blip on the U.S. payments screen, but on London’s vast public-transportation system, payments from contactless cards or smart phones now account for half of all pay-as-you-go fares on subways and rail lines, system operator Transport for London reported Tuesday. Contactless …

Boosted by the rapid rise of chip card payments in Asia and the United States, more than half of general-purpose credit and debit cards worldwide now have an EMV chip, EMVCo reported Thursday. Plus, nearly two-thirds of card-present transactions now involve an EMV card being read by a point-of-sale terminal that …

Mastercard Inc. says it is preparing for a better online payments experience by backing the EMVCo secure remote commerce specification. Visa Inc., too, says it supports the spec. The specification, announced in November, establishes the technical framework for enabling consumers to use their payment cards across channels more easily than …

Boosted by higher cardholder spending, American Express Co.’s discount revenue grew 9% in the first quarter despite a year-over-year decline in its average worldwide discount rate. AmEx reported late Wednesday that discount revenue hit $5.89 billion compared with $5.39 billion a year earlier. Discount revenue is by far AmEx’s largest …

Russia gets a bad rap because of its notorious hackers, but more U.S. e-commerce fraud originates from China and Venezuela than Russia, according to a new report from Experian plc. Experian, which is based in Dublin, Ireland, but has large U.S. businesses in credit reports and marketing and data services, …

American Express Co. disclosed Monday that it will end its multi-merchant Plenti rewards program on July 10. AmEx announced the closure through a tweet on the Plenti Twitter feed and on Plenti’s Web site. “While Plenti has grown in scale since its launch, a number of factors, including shifting priorities …

Klarna Inc. is bringing another of its buy now/pay later products to the U.S. market this summer with broader availability later in the year. That’s the word from Jim Lofgren, chief executive of Klarna Inc., the North American arm of the Sweden-based online payments firm. Lofgren, speaking to Digital Transactions …

Paysafe Holdings UK Ltd. hasn’t been shy about building scale via acquisitions, and on Thursday it announced one of its biggest deals yet in the U.S. merchant-acquiring business. It expects to close by the end of June on a transaction that will bring into its fold iPayment Holdings Inc., a …

Payments executives may abhor fraudsters, but they have to admit the scamsters and hackers are a determined lot. The percentage of organizations sustaining actual or attempted payments fraud increased in 2017 for the fourth straight year, reaching a record high 78%, according to the latest “Payments Fraud And Control Survey” …