Debit Cards

A new rule took effect this week in Canada that is expected to enable more debit card transactions by opening up venues such as buses, trains, parking meters, and vending machines for acceptance.  The regulation, called Rule E5, comes from Payments Canada, the country’s clearing-and-settlement operator, and amends a prior …

Small businesses using Square Inc. will be able to use turnkey UPS shipping services integrated into Square Online Store, the acquirer’s e-commerce platform, UPS announced. The Square-UPS deal includes special shipping rates that could be up to 55% off UPS daily rates.Amazon.com Inc. reported it now has more than 150 million Prime members …

Improved online payments, tokenization, and contactless transactions all gained ground in 2019’s last three months for Visa Inc. as the network’s payment volume grew 8% year-over-year. Visa reported total U.S. payment volume of $1.06 trillion in its first quarter of fiscal 2020 ended Dec. 31, a 7.8% increase from $980 …

How will 2019 be remembered for data breaches? Not well. The number of U.S. data breaches tracked by the Identity Theft Resource Center increased to 1,473, a 17% increase from 1,257 in 2018. Drilling into the payments sector, the increase was larger, according to a newly released report from the …

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Task Force on Financial Technology held a hearing Thursday morning titled “Is Cash Still King? Reviewing the Rise of Mobile Payments.” Witnesses included representatives from PayPal, the U.S. Faster Payments Council, the Brookings Institute, Consumer Reports, and a New York City non-profit dedicated to financial …

Mastercard Inc. on Wednesday reported double-digit growth in fourth-quarter purchase volume and transactions, but reduced economic activity from the Coronavirus that originated in China could put a crimp on growth early this year. “We’ll take this as it comes, one step at a time,” Mastercard chief executive Ajay Banga said …

EBay Inc. plans to expand its managed-payments program dramatically starting in the second half of next year, officials said Tuesday. Introduced last year, the program depends on a gateway from Adyen NV and now operates in the United States and Germany. “We will go hard at not only the markets that we’re in …

PCI Pal, a payments provider for contact centers and other card-not-present businesses, launched PCI Pal Digital to secure transactions on digital channels such as Webchat, social media, email, and SMS.VPay, a digital claims-payment platform, reported a 30% rise in revenue from 2018 to 2019, fueled by a three-year, 180% customer …

The criminals behind ransomware attacks are becoming dramatically bolder. The average payment demanded in fourth-quarter attacks reached $84,116, more than double the average sum in the third quarter, according to the latest data from Coveware Inc., a Westport, Conn.-based cybersecurity firm that tracks data from cases it has handled. Worse …

Visa Inc. is among backers of an $80-million investment in Currency Cloud Ltd., whose software runs cross-border payments for financial apps, primarily in Europe. The funding round, co-led by Visa and SAP’s venture-funding unit Sapphire, included backing from Google. The funding follows Visa’s $5.3-billion deal to acquire Plaid, whose software enables fintechs …