Transaction Processing

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday announced a consent order that requires Mastercard Inc. and UniRush LLC, program manager of the prepaid RushCard, to pay $10 million in restitution to cardholders and a $3 million civil fine as a result of an October 2015 processing glitch …

Mastercard Inc.’s key operating and financial metrics all grew in the fourth quarter, and president and chief executive Ajay Banga on Tuesday said he expects them to continue growing despite the political turbulence created by President Donald Trump’s new administration. In the United States, total fourth-quarter credit and debit card …

• Merchant acquirer Square Inc. announced a promotion that waives processing costs for small businesses on more than $12,000 in Apple Pay charge volume. It will give free processing on Apple Pay transactions for small-business customers that enroll this year in a promotion that includes purchase of Square’s contactless and EMV chip card reader …

Merchant processor Vantiv Inc. has agreed to offer a mobile point-of-sale platform from CardFlight Inc. The platform, called SwipeSimple, includes an EMV reader, a mobile app for iOS and Android, and a back-office reporting portal. New York-based CardFlight says the devices will be co-branded with Vantiv’s branding and will be …

A San Francisco analytics company with access to transaction data on 3 million consumer credit and debit cards says usage of Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payment service rose steadily in 2016. TXN Solutions Inc. also says that among brick-and-mortar merchants Apple Pay usage is highest at New York City-area pharmacy …

Independent sales organization Total Merchant Services Inc. has added its Groovv POS system to its free hardware program, a move that places all of its products in the program. Prior to this week’s announcement, only point-of-sale terminals were part of the program, says Woodland Hills, Calif.-based TMS. This should make it …

The Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force is in the final stages of reviewing 19 proposals to speed up U.S. electronic payments, Fed executives tell Digital Transactions News. The faster-payments initiative is part of the Fed’s broader Payment System Improvement project that also addresses security and efficiency issues. The Fed …

Credit card numbers were involved in just under one-fifth of the 4,000-plus data breaches worldwide reported in 2016, data-security services provider Risk Based Security Inc. reported Wednesday. RBS says the latest release of its annual Data Breach QuickView found that 4,149 data breaches occurred or became publicly known in 2016, …

Total dollar volume on Discover Financial Services’ networks increased 2% in the fourth quarter to hit $80.2 billion versus $78.8 billion a year earlier, but results varied among the company’s payment operations. Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover reported Tuesday that the Discover credit card unit posted proprietary volume of $34 billion, up …

• A survey released by RestaurantOwner.com, a resource enterprise for independent restaurant owners, found that the average cost of a restaurant POS system is $13,344, compared with $18,000 in 2012. Only 10% of the 1,190 respondents said they use pay-at-the-table devices, and only 31% used EMV-compliant systems. • Restaurant Brands International, parent company …