Credit Cards

Boosted by e-commerce sales, growth in credit card payments far outpaced growth in debit card and automated clearing house payments in 2016, according to newly released findings from the Federal Reserve. Credit card transactions grew 10.2% from 2015’s levels to 37.3 billion and were valued at $3.27 trillion, the Fed …

Some 55% of all U.S. storefronts were accepting EMV chip cards as of September, according to the latest quarterly data from Visa Inc., released Monday. That comes to more than 2.5 million merchant locations, up 9% from June and 538% from September 2015, when 392,000 locations were accepting chip cards …

The PCI Security Standards Council named Lance J. Johnson to the executive director position. Johnson, who had been chief operating officer at Sequent Software Inc. for the past five years and spent 20 years at Visa Inc., replaces Stephen W. Orfei, the general manager who left earlier this year after …

Paris-based defense, aerospace, and transportation contractor Thales S.A. announced Monday that it has a €4.8 billion ($5.66 billion) deal to acquire Gemalto N.V., the world’s largest maker of chips for smart cards and mobile phones. The announcement that Thales plans to buy Gemalto for €51 per share ($60.1) comes just …

Santa Claus might be relaxing on Dec. 25, but criminals targeting online merchants with stolen credit and debit cards won’t be taking the day off. That’s evident from Stripe Inc.’s latest report on online fraud trends and behavior. Released this week, the report, which examines an undisclosed number of transactions made …

Wider availability of technology that would have been nearly unthinkable only a few years ago is making biometric authentication a more likely replacement for the password. In the latest development, Discover Financial Services on Thursday announced users of its mobile app who own an iPhone X can log in to …

Gas stations caught a lucky break a year ago when Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. postponed their planned October 2017 EMV liability shifts for unattended fuel pumps for three years. Almost no convenience store or stand-alone gas station chain would have been ready by then, retail petroleum executives say, and …

The seemingly unending growth in online shopping is doing more than closing physical stores. The point of sale in the stores that remain is changing, and along with it, payments providers, says Javelin Strategy & Research in its “2017-2021 Retail Point of Sale Payment Forecast.” As consumers continue to increase …

American Express Co. on Monday became the third of the four major U.S. card brands to announce it will cease requiring signatures for transactions made with its cards at the point of sale beginning in April 2018. AmEx says its rule change applies to all point-of-sale purchase transactions globally, a …

Whether he intended to or not, Ken Chenault may well have touched off a debate about what constitutes the ideal governance structure for a global payments network. Chenault, who will retire early next year as chairman and chief executive of American Express Co., charged this week that his two big …