Mobile Commerce

Investors in payment stocks experienced something in September they don’t have to suffer through very often—two straight months of negative returns. A basket of 27 transaction-processor stocks tracked by Chicago-based Barrington Research Associates Inc. posted a negative mean return of 3.89% in September, considerably worse than three major stock-market indexes. …

Drury Hotels Co., which in May disclosed a data breach involving reservations made through some third-party online booking sites, now says the breach involved transactions from Dec. 28, 2017, to June 2 of this year, about two-and-a-half months longer than the originally stated timeline. Drury said “unauthorized access” occurred on …

The Federal Reserve, which is taking industry comments on its upcoming FedNow real-time payments network until Nov. 7, said common questions so far involve pricing and the scope of the service. The first question can’t be answered yet, and the second touches on services that will be designed by financial institutions building on top …

The New York attorney general is suing Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. for allegedly violating the state’s data-breach notification act by failing to notify nearly 20,000 customers that their Dunkin’ accounts had been compromised in a series of brute force cyberattacks beginning in 2015. Hackers also gained unauthorized access to more than 300,000 accounts in …

The recently completed acquisition of Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) by Global Payments Inc. is “the best of the bunch” among the three megamergers in the payment-processing industry this year, investment research firm Morningstar Inc. says in a new report. The Global-TSYS deal “has the most capacity to reduce costs …

Fiserv Inc.’s acquisition of First Data Corp. this year was the first of a trio of big mergers that has made 2019 the year of the megadeals in payments. On Thursday, a key Fiserv executive close to the action explained how the $22-billion acquisition served as the capstone to a …

Policymakers have much work ahead when reviewing cryptocurrencies like the proposed Libra, a European regulator said Wednesday. In related news, a cryptocurrency payment plugin debuts for WordPress. The Libra cryptocurrency project led by Facebook Inc. has “undoubtedly been a wake-up call for central banks and policymakers,” said Benoit Coeure, a …

More types of retailers and e-commerce merchants are facing more fraud attempts as the number of attacks increased for every merchant type covered in the 2019 True Cost of Fraud report issued Tuesday by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. And with the growth comes an increase in the cost to counter the …

The clamor to sign up merchants that want to sell hemp-derived cannabidiol products is undiminished despite multiple questions about what a legal CBD product is and how to onboard these merchants. “The banks are having a tough time now because it’s so new,” said Travis Chrisman, president and cofounder of …

The Federal Trade Commission announced settlements with the two principals of Apex Capital Group, an Internet marketer of dietary supplements and personal-care products the FTC accused of using deceptive free-trial offers and negative-option billing in the U.S. and United Kingdom. The defendants must surrender assets valued at $3 million or more and are barred …