Prepaid card program manager Green Dot Corp. reported higher purchase volumes and card numbers in the first quarter while merchant acquirer CardConnect Corp. posted a 23% increase in bank card dollar volume. Purchase volumes on Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot’s cards totaled $5.5 billion, up 17% from $4.71 billion in 2016’s …

• Visa Inc. said its April 2019 date for compliance with 3-D Secure 2.0, an online-commerce fraud-prevention standard, applies globally. In 2016, Visa had said compliance would start with Europe in April 2018. “We felt it was easier for our various stakeholders to have a single global date, so we aligned Europe accordingly,” …

• Visa Inc. announced that its 3-D Secure 2.0 program will begin in April 2019. 3-D Secure 2.0 is a measure managed by EMVCo that shares e-commerce transaction data between merchants and issuers in an effort to thwart fraudulent transactions and approve valid ones. EMVCo released the updated spec in October 2016. • Visa said grocer …

• Repeal of the Durbin Amendment took a step closer to reality with the passage of the Financial Choice Act by the House Financial Services Committee by a 34-26 vote. The full House is expected to take up the bill by the end of the month. • MoneyGram International Inc. said …

• Two executives of Commerce Payment Systems, which had been a Hewlett, N.Y.-based independent sales organization, have been charged in a $30 million scheme that overbilled more than 10,000 merchants, announced the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York this week following the unsealing of an indictment. The charges …

• Apple Inc., in its results for the second quarter ending April 1, said Apple Pay is available now in 15 markets, having launched in Taiwan and Ireland in March. Globally, that includes 20 million contactless-ready locations, of which 4.5 million are in the United States, said chief executive Tim Cook during …

• Processing giant First Data Corp. and cross-border payments specialist Flywire Corp. announced a collaboration by which Flywire education and health-care clients will be able to more easily accept cross-border card payments and First Data clients will be able to more readily accept high-value international remittances. • Gro Solutions, a vendor of digital solutions …

• Former Heartland Payment Systems Inc. chief executive Bob Carr has returned to the payments industry with Beyond, a payments provider. Announced Monday, Beyond, on its Web site, says it will provide payment processing, integrated payments, lending services, and business-management services. Carr had been the leader of Heartland, which Global Payments Inc. acquired for …

• Apple Inc. is once again talking to payments-industry players about launching a person-to-person payment service, according to a report on Recode.net, which cited “multiple sources familiar with the talks.” The sources say the service would allow iPhone users to send money to each other. Recode also reports Apple is talking to …

• Opponents and proponents of repealing debit card interchange controls known as the Durbin Amendment prepared for a hearing on the Financial CHOICE Act Thursday with dueling press releases. The National Retail Federation, as reported earlier this week by Digital Transactions News, led a meeting of retailers interested in keeping the …