Near-Field Communication (NFC)

There’s nothing like mass transit to inculcate payment habits in consumers, so it’s no surprise the major card brands are scrambling to see that their products are part of the ongoing rollout of contactless payments in the nation’s biggest transit system, New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Starting May 31, …

Two powerful forces for making contactless cards a routine feature of daily life are acceptance by mass-transit systems and backing from the biggest issuers. On Wednesday, that combination came into focus with an announcement from Visa Inc. that starting May 31 users of the 20 million contactless credit cards JPMorgan …

The beaten-down shares of vending-machine payments provider USA Technologies Inc. jumped nearly 15% Tuesday on news that a hedge fund had taken a 12% stake in the company. In a regulatory filing, New York City-based Hudson Executive Capital LP said it believes USAT’s “shares are undervalued and are an attractive …

Contactless payments account for only an estimated low-single-digit share of U.S. general-purchase credit and debit card transactions, but contactless has a much greater share of payments in Canada and the United Kingdom, recently released data show. Canada’s largest merchant acquirer, Toronto-based Moneris Solutions Corp., says that in the first quarter …

Nxgen International Inc. acquired payments provider Payment Plus Inc. for an undisclosed amount. PPI will continue to grow its business in Kentucky and the Midwest, Nxgen said. Card-issuing platform Marqeta said it raised $260 million in Series E funding, placing the company’s value at almost $2 billion. Marqeta said the …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it will buy InstaMed, a specialist in health-care payments. Terms were not disclosed. In April, InstaMed released an app with a blockchain prototype that it said will demonstrate how the technology can support adjudication and payment for insurance claims, patient billing, and patient payment. NLS …

Conventional wisdom in the payments business has been that the advent and spread of contactless cards would pave the way for wider use of mobile payments. But research released this week indicates that may not be the case. Indeed, far from serving as the training wheels for mobile payments, new …

Payments firms continue to strengthen their offerings in the dining sector as evidenced by Wednesday’s announcements from American Express Co., which said it had acquired reservation platform provider Resy Network Inc., and Shift4 Payments, which is launching a pay-at-table system called SkyTab and providing it to new merchants at no …

Automatic Labs Inc., a unit of SiriusXM, announced its Connected Car Assistant is available at major retailers nationwide for $99.99. The product, which consists of an app and an adapter, allows drivers to pay road tolls, among other connected-car functions. Revel Systems Inc. completed the installation of its cloud-based iPad …

POSaBIT, a point-of-sale services provider for cannabis retailers, said an analysis of “hundreds of thousands” of transactions at more than 120 California, Washington, and Colorado stores found that consumers belonging to a cannabis retailer’s loyalty rewards program had a 28% higher average ticket value and visited the store more frequently …