Transaction Processing

Two bellwether payments stocks headed in opposite directions Friday morning as they reported financial results for the fourth quarter. Discover Financial Services saw its share price swoon 7.41% in pre-market trading. By mid-morning, it stood at $77.94, down 9% from its Thursday close. AmEx shares on the other hand had …

New York City became the third U.S. city to ban cashless-only payments in restaurants and stores with the passage Thursday of a measure to prohibit merchants from refusing to accept cash. San Francisco and Philadelphia have similar bans, as does the state of New Jersey.  Originally proposed by New York …

WEX Inc., a processor in the fleet-fueling and corporate transaction market, said it has agreed to acquire eNett, a business-to-business payments software company specializing in the travel market, and Optal, a specialist provider of B2B transactions, for approximately $1.275 billion in cash and approximately 2 million shares of WEX common …

In another move solidifying its emboldened links with Chinese payments providers, PayPal Holdings Inc. announced Wednesday it will support UnionPay International in its digital wallet. Eventually, UnionPay International, whose financial-institution members have issued more than 7.5 billion cards globally, according to China Daily, will look for ways to support PayPal’s …

The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, operator of the Real Time Payments network, said Thursday that it will raise the RTP transaction limit from the current $25,000 to $100,000 effective Feb. 1. Steve Ledford, TCH senior vice president of product strategy and development, tells Digital Transactions News the limit is …

BMO Harris Bank has made Zelle person-to-person payments available to its commercial clients, which can use Zelle to pay individuals without requiring banking information needed for ACH transactions. BMO Harris Bank says it is one of only eight banks to offer Zelle as a business-to-consumer service.Commerce Bank said insurer Progressive will use CommercePayments PreferPay for …

Payment firms that are used to choosing which PIN standard to audit against now have a much simpler choice. The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. and the PCI Security Standards Council have created a unified PIN Security Standard, replacing separate ones each organization previously maintained. The consolidation, announced Tuesday, should …

Faster payments on the nation’s automated clearing house network reached a milestone in the fourth quarter, with each business day recording at least 1 million same-day transactions for the first time since same-day service was introduced, according to data released Wednesday by Nacha, the governing body for the ACH. “We’re …

British telecommunications giant Vodafone Group Plc has become the latest Libra participant to withdraw from the controversial digital-currency project initiated by Facebook Inc., Reuters reported. Other early participants that have withdrawn include Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, and eBay.With an eye on expanding its Bitcoin services, merchant processor Square Inc. said it is developing what it calls …

Business-to-consumer payouts are attracting a small but growing cadre of payment processors and fintechs eager to exploit a multi-trillion-dollar market where checks and automated clearing house direct deposits have a heavy presence, according to a new report. The report from Aite Group LLC analysts Talie Baker and Erika Baumann identifies …