Square Inc.’s 6-month-old cash-advance product, Square Capital, has distributed $75 million to some 15,000 small businesses, the San Francisco-based payments company announced via Twitter this week. Further, merchants that have accepted the advances have processed in excess of $1 billion in sales through Square, the company said. It also pointed …

Payments 3.0 The 30% annual growth of mobile point of sale (mPOS) over the past three years (footnote 1)  indicates that a new innovation is being rapidly adopted. The number of different companies providing mPOS devices, currently upwards of 200, is extraordinary even by the norms of the mobile phone-based …

Enthusiasts are betting Bitcoin ATMs will be the next step in taking the digital currency from monetary curiosity to mainstream acceptance. Since the first Bitcoins were mined in 2008, evangelists for the fledgling digital currency have dreamed of making Bitcoin as ubiquitous as dollar bills. To say the least, the …

Simply saying that users want faster payments isn’t enough, says Jan Estep, who outlines NACHA’s new proposal for same-day settlement. The phased approach enables functionality to build over time, creating value for participants at each step along the way. Jan Estep is president and chief executive of NACHA—The Electronic Payments …

Peter Lucas They’re not household names, but network backbone providers TNS and Phoenix Managed Networks have executed a major shift beyond their long-time base in dial-up connections. Ask a merchant who his or her transaction processor or acquiring bank is and they can provide the name in a snap. Ask …

Karen Epper Hoffman PINless debit card transactions are gaining favor as online merchants latch onto this speedy payment alternative. But will PINless debit’s rise give debit networks much of a boost in the short term? Call it PINless debit version 2.0. The ability to make a payment with a debit …

Often regarded as operating in a gray area, merchant aggregators let small businesses piggyback on their merchant accounts. But aggregators are moving to the forefront of payments innovation and winning new supporters. By Peter Lucas Complex, confounding, risky, upstart. These are some of the adjectives used to describe merchant aggregators …

Elizabeth Whalen Tech companies and processors are transforming tablet computers, notably Apple’s iPad, into mobile electronic cash registers of the future that do a whole lot more than simply payments. Four years ago—before the introduction of the iPad—Jason Richelson was trying to find a better point-of-sale system for his three-location …

Linda Punch Proponents say EMV chip cards with dynamic authentication could take a real bite out of card fraud. But what does this new technology mean for PINs? As the card industry rolls out so-called EMV contact and contactless chip cards in the U.S., the technology known as dynamic data …

Using a three-pronged technology play that includes enabling consumers to share merchant offers through social media, Boston-based SCVNGR Inc.’s mobile-payments unit LevelUp has added 500,000 new consumer users in just the past four months, bringing its total user base to 1 million. The strategy is part of a larger plan …