Mobile Commerce

The New York City area’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday activated 96 contactless card readers in Manhattan’s Penn Station, one of the nation’s busiest transit hubs, in its quest to accept contactless payment cards and mobile-payment apps across its vast subway and bus system by the end of next year. …

Mastercard Inc. on Wednesday announced it has begun its first real-world pilots for a new digital-identity system the company says has the potential to dramatically simplify payments and other interactions between consumers and government and commercial entities. Two separate pilots for the new service, which relies on mobile devices, are …

Bank of America Corp. next year will enhance Erica, its popular digital financial assistant powered by artificial intelligence, with two new features—one to make its credit and debit card holders aware of which merchants might be storing their card numbers, and another that will issue alerts about possible duplicate charges. …

Quebec-based Desjardins Group said the former employee suspected of orchestrating a massive data breach that affected 4.2 million members of the big credit-union federation also had access to the personal information of a further 1.8 million credit card holders who are not Desjardins members, the CBC reported.ACI Worldwide released the latest version …

Facebook Inc.’s Libra cryptocurrency may be struggling with regulators globally, but that doesn’t mean blockchain processors aren’t moving forward with other stablecoins. Atlanta-based BitPay Inc. on Tuesday introduced payment acceptance and settlement services in a trio of stablecoins whose value is tied to the U.S. dollar: Circle Internet Financial Ltd.’s …

Payoneer Inc., a provider of cross-border payments for small businesses, announced it is moving into merchant services with its acquisition of optile GmbH, a Munich-based company whose technology eases payment acceptance. Terms were not announced.The Western Union Co. has added a feature to its mobile app that allows users to donate …

Despite 96% of U.S. financial-services organizations considering their technology security as adequate, 62% of those responding to a Thales survey said they experienced a breach. That’s according to the recently released 2019 Thales Data Threat Report.  Commissioned by Thales, the survey of 1,200 information technology and data security professionals and …

Payments provider Pineapple Payments said it has acquired a merchant portfolio from Paystri, an integrated-payments technology provider, and entered into a partnership with the firm. The size of the acquisition was not disclosed.Global e-commerce sales volume on Cyber Monday grew 21.5% in terms of value over Cyber Monday in 2018, outpacing sales …

While last weekend’s holiday-shopping extravaganza unleashed a geyser of payment transactions, it also uncorked a flood of potential fraud, data released Thursday show.  Online shoppers spent $7.4 billion on Friday alone, with Cyber Monday sales, which by definition are e-commerce transactions, alone estimated to total a record $9.4 billion, up …

A new set of security protocols to better safeguard online connections within the financial-services industry is in the offing. Securing and trusting these connections is a critical piece of the payments infrastructure. Experts say the underlying standards they are built on—called public key infrastructure—need updating. That’s why the Accredited Standards …