Near-Field Communication (NFC)

Departing PayPal Holdings Inc. chief operating officer Bill Ready in January will assume the role of head of commerce at Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit, TechCrunch reported. PayPal announced in June that he would leave the company at year’s end. Ready came to PayPal in 2013 as a result of the company’s $800-million …

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. …

Like their American cousins, Canadians are rapidly adopting newer payment methods. In fact, they’re doing so even faster than U.S. consumers in some respects. The report, “Canadian Payment Methods and Trends: 2019,” released last week by Payments Canada, says contactless payments grew 30% year-over-year in 2018. Card- and mobile-based contactless …

A new standard unveiled Wednesday by the PCI Security Standards Council could pave the way for more acceptance of contactless payments with no more hardware needed than a merchant’s off-the-shelf mobile phone or tablet. The standard is dubbed Contactless Payments on COTS (commercial off-the shelf devices), or CPoC. It spells …

Jewelry retailer Pandora said it is standing by its 2019 sales guidance despite an eight-hour point-of-sale issue at U.S. and Canadian stores on Black Friday.American Express Co. said its Small Business Saturday promotion, which occurred Nov. 30, achieved a record with an estimated $19.6 billion in spending.With fewer people carrying cash, the Salvation …

Customer data from 4 million payment cards stolen in breaches at four restaurant chains has gone up for sale in the Joker’s Stash underground bazaar, KrebsOnSecurity reported. The breaches occurred at nearly half the 1,750 total locations of Krystal, Moe’s Southwest Grill, McAlister’s Deli and Schlotzsky’s, the latter three of which are owned by …

A leading credit-union service organization reported Wednesday that it has distributed half a million contactless payment cards through some of its members, and Mastercard Inc. has paired up with a French investment firm with an eye on bringing new fare technology to mass-transit systems. St. Petersburg, Fla.-based PSCU says it …

Observers of mobile wallets have focused attention on user counts as a sign of adoption, but that leaves open the question of how many of these consumers are turning into habitual users. As it turns out, mobile-payments apps have a much harder time retaining users than do banking apps, according …

Confirming rumors that the Federal Trade Commission is looking into issues involving debit card transaction routing, Visa Inc. late last week reported the Federal Trade Commission has asked it to voluntarily provide information about its routing practices. In a brief notice in its fiscal 2019 report to the Securities and …

Ever since Apple Pay debuted in 2014, Apple Inc. has kept the near-field communication chip in its devices off-limits to payment apps from other companies. But now legislation has appeared in Germany that may force the computing giant to grant access to that all-important chip, which allows Apple phones and …