Payments provider North American Bancard Holdings LLC said it completed its acquisition of Total Merchant Services Inc. The combined company now processes nearly $50 billion in payments annually. FitPay Inc., a provider of payment-authentication technology, said it will offer prepaid capability on contactless-enabled wearable devices through a FitPay prepaid Mastercard. The program will allow …

Online-payments provider Stripe Inc. now allows merchants on its platform to accept payments from Chinese consumers through links to the China-based Alipay and WeChat Pay systems, Reuters reported. At a valuation of $9.2 billion, 7-year-old Stripe is the most valuable privately held payments startup. Alibaba Group, the China-based online marketplace, has launched the Taobao Group …

The time has come to stop patching the nation’s outmoded payments system. Here’s a proposal for a modern, open, and secure alternative that leverages the existing rails. As the payments world continues on its evolution to more and more transactions performed via remote means, such as Internet, mobile, pay buttons, …

Canadian merchants now have a self-service tool to accept digital cash in stores via the MintChip Retail Payment Platform announced Wednesday by nanoPay Corp. NanoPay purchased MintChip, a digital currency developed by the Royal Canadian Mint, in 2016. “Since acquiring MintChip from the Royal Canadian Mint, we have focused on enhancing …

U.S.-based cross-border payments provider dLocal said it has added three major Chinese payment systems—WeChat Pay, AliPay, and UnionPay—to its platform. The three account for more than 70% of the Chinese market, according to dLocal. In related news, Flywire Corp., which recently expanded its cross-border payments business to include business-to business transfers, announced it has added …

Apple Pay users visiting restaurants that are part of Punchh Inc.’s restaurant-loyalty service will be able to earn and redeem points when using the mobile-payment service, Punchh announced Thursday. Smashburger, Quiznos, and MOD Pizza will offer the Apple Pay/Punchh service later this year, Mountain View, Calif.-based Punchhsays. Apple Pay users …

• Payment technology provider VeriFone Systems Inc. said it has integrated with the AirportConnect Common Use Payment Service from SITA, the big information-technology and communications specialist serving the air-transport industry, to bring electronic payment acceptance for multiple airlines and ground handlers at airport check-in desks, kiosks and bag drops via a …

By Rick Oglesby and Brad Margol A 2015 European Parliament regulation, EU2015/751, caps the fees that a European cardholder’s bank may charge a merchant’s bank (interchange fees) at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. Also passed in 2015, and ramping up to full effect in January of …

Consumers may not realize it, but their mobile phone is a gateway for criminals to take over their bank accounts. In a fast-growing scam known as SIM swapping, criminals transfer the phone number associated with a consumer’s mobile phone to the SIM card embedded in a mobile phone in their …

• The Zelle person-to-person payments network announced its service will go live in the mobile-banking apps of more than 30 financial institutions beginning this week and continuing over the next 12 months. The coverage will include more than 86 million mobile-banking consumers, Zelle said, adding that more than 51 million transactions totaling more …