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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 …

SurchX, a surcharging specialist, launched SurchX for e-commerce platform Magento. SurchX automatically calculates surcharges and fee structures based on card type and jurisdiction. The fee can be passed on for the consumer to pay. Payments provider ACI Worldwide said its real-time payments technology is supporting BMO Financial Group’s efforts to …

The conditions for the widespread adoption of contactless payments using chip cards are in place, asserts a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. But when that will happen and what will trigger it are unknown in the Fed report, “Tap to Pay: Will Contactless Cards Pave the …

Merchants and card issuers long ago discovered the value of cash in driving transaction volume, but on Thursday Discover Financial Services demonstrated how expensive some rewards categories can be. Discover reported $677 million in discount and interchange revenue for the first quarter, up 5% from the same quarter last year. …

There’s much more to PayPal Holdings Inc. than Venmo, but that’s where the payments industry’s spotlight has shone in recent months. So on Wednesday, PayPal for the first time revealed how many active users its peer-to-peer transfer service has: 40 million plus. Venmo users rang up $21 billion in volume …

Blockchain startup Bleumi Inc. announced Tuesday it has launched two services, Bleumi Pay and Bleumi Invoice, for cross-border remittances. Bleumi Pay, a gateway that works with so-called stablecoins to avoid the price volatility afflicting cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The gateway will allow businesses and merchants to receive payments via Web site, …

In a sign that at least some U.S. wireless carriers haven’t given up on their ambitions in mobile payments, T-Mobile US Inc. on Thursday launched its T-Mobile Money service nationwide. But the service, which began as a pilot in November, goes beyond payments offerings to include some traditional banking services …

CardFlight Inc. is adding point-of-sale terminals to its roster of SwipeSimple-compatible products with the launch Tuesday of SwipeSimple Terminal. This puts the SwipeSimple POS software on more devices in addition to tablets, personal computers, and mobile devices. More than 50,000 merchants currently use SwipeSimple, CardFlight says. SwipeSimple Terminal initially is …

Independent sales organization Payroc LLC launched RewardPay and CashRewards, programs aimed at offering merchants card-network-compliant services for surcharging and cash discounts at the point of sale. A report from Transaction Network Services Inc. shows 26% of survey respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia who own a …