Transaction Processing

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews U.S. consumers are becoming more aware of mobile payments, which could potentially increase use of the burgeoning digital-payment method. Indeed 56% of them are “extremely aware” of the technology, finds the 2016 North America Consumer Digital Payments Survey from Accenture. In 2015, the figure was 52%. Only …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Charles Scharf accomplished a lot in less than four years as Visa Inc.’s chief executive—he oversaw Visa’s acquisition of Visa Europe, a groundbreaking peace accord with PayPal Holdings Inc., and a cobranding and acceptance deal with Costco Wholesale Corp., among other things—but one of his unfinished tasks …

• Bank of America Corp. said its debit card purchase volumes totaled $71 billion in the third quarter, up 2.5% from $69.3 billion a year earlier. U.S. credit card purchase volume increased 2% to $57.6 billion. BofA said it now has 21.3 million mobile-banking users, a 15.8% increase from 18.4 …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews While the payments business is caught up these days in working out strategies for mobile apps and social media, it turns out these aren’t the cutting-edge technologies they once were. Instead, fields like virtual reality, machine learning, and natural language are winning the spotlight. That’s according …

• The rash of hotel breaches continues. Noble House Hotels & Resorts said it confirmed that a payment card system used at its Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa and Hotel Terra may have been breached between Sept. 5 and Sept. 6. The company said there are no indications the breach …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews With the deadline for EMV compliance for fuel resellers a year away, fuel-pump maker Wayne Fueling Systems LLC is readying its products for the transition from magnetic-stripe payment cards. Wayne says its NAMOS point-of-sale system is now available for EMV transactions on First Data Corp.’s network, and …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Fuzse, a new payments company targeting merchants that want seamless payment flows, is embracing software developers and independent software vendors as a way to reach them. The Dallas-based company, founded by Lane Conner, a former executive at First American Payment Systems L.P., Century Payments, and most recently …

With an eye on having tangible proposals out by mid-2017, two Federal Reserve task forces are about to evaluate 19 plans to make electronic payments faster. Speed and security usually come to mind first when payments executives talk about improving the U.S. payment system, but other factors increasingly important to …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Ever since the advent of mobile shopping, experts have cautioned that spending in the new channel would be hampered by small screens and clunky interfaces. Now, though, relatively new technology like natural-language interfaces and so-called bots may be coming to the rescue. A new study released …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Best known nationally for its powerful basketball teams, the University of Connecticut is about to make a name for itself in cybersecurity. UConn’s School of Engineering and retail credit provider Synchrony Financial on Tuesday announced that Synchrony is providing $2.2 million to fund a new