Near-Field Communication (NFC)

Mastercard Inc. saw strong growth in its core business in the second quarter, a time when the network continued its push for contactless cards and development of the new Secure Remote Commerce system for online payments. Mastercard said it switched 21.4 billion transactions globally in the three months ending June …

Add LG Pay to the multitude of U.S. mobile-payment options. LG Electronics USA announced Tuesday the mobile-payment service is available on select LG smart phones. The move comes a year later than LG initially said it would. LG Electronics Inc., the parent company of LG Electronics USA, introduced LG Pay …

Nxt-ID Inc.’s Fit Pay Inc. unit is using contactless technology from CPI Card Group Inc. for Fit Pay’s coin-shaped Flip device, which lets users store and spend U.S. dollars converted from Bitcoin holdings. Specifically, Fit Pay, a unit of Melbourne, Fla.-based Nxt-ID Inc., has adopted a product called “Adaptives,” CPI …

Payments-technology provider eProcessing Network LLC introduced its Premier Verify SCN, an EMV-certified card reader that supports contactless payments, including Google Pay and Apple Pay. Aimed at small and mid-size merchants, the device is said to cut transaction times by 50%. Software provider Patientco launched two health-care payment applications for Epic …

After about two months of not accepting mobile wallets, J.C. Penney Co. Inc. this month quietly resumed accepting them, apparently by firing up its old contactless-payment acceptance system. The Plano, Texas-based department-store chain with about 860 locations had turned off its contactless system that used an older technology known as …

The Facebook-led announcement of the Libra cryptocurrency is evoking blowback both in the United States and overseas. House Financial Services Committee chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called for Facebook to halt the planned launch of Libra until Congress has had a chance to hold hearings on the cryptocurrency. Elsewhere, the governor …

Los Angeles-area merchants that sell transit tickets on behalf of 25 transit agencies will adopt an Android-based app for ticket sales, Cubic Corp. announced Thursday. Cubic says its Cubic Transportation Systems division is upgrading the existing point-of-sale infrastructure more than 450 retailers use to accommodate the Cubic Mobile for Merchants …

Online-payments provider Stripe Inc. made good on its promise to offer its processing software to in-store merchants with the release Wednesday of a slew of software and two pre-certified devices. Founded in 2011 as an online payments company, San Francisco-based Stripe announced in September it would add in-store payment acceptance. At …

Groupon announced it will provide GasBuddy, a fuel-price reporting service, with food and drink offers from local merchants via card linking. Consumers will be able to load offers directly to an eligible payment card after completing an opt-in enrollment in the GasBuddy app. POSaBIT, a fintech supplier to the legal …

A survey of more than 3,000 consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, sponsored by Transaction Network Services, shows the heaviest adoption of mobile-payment apps in the U.S., at 59% of respondents, but the highest adoption of contactless payments in the U.K., at 79%. Perhaps not surprisingly, younger …