Processor Net Element Inc. said its first-half payment volume rose 37% year over year to $1.62 billion. Most of the volume came from the company’s North American subsidiary, Unified Payments, which handled $1.4 billion in payments, up 40%. Handpoint, a mobile point-of-sale payments provider, announced an integration with RxTrax, a …

Macy’s Inc. disclosed that criminals were able to breach sensitive data on Macys.com, the Detroit Free Press reported. Citing a letter sent to customers, the newspaper said Macy’s detected suspicious activity on June 11. The retailer then blocked customer profiles that appeared to be breached. Hackers were able to get …

Square Inc. may be planning to re-file its application for deposit insurance with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., but that isn’t stopping its main opponent from celebrating the fact that the company has withdrawn its original application—at least for now. “We can call it a victory,” Chris Cole, executive vice …

Square Inc. has withdrawn a banking-charter application it made in September with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., saying it will re-file the application later after reviewing and strengthening it. A related application with the Utah Department of Financial Institutions remains active. Both applications are for an industrial-loan corporation, which is …

Real-time processing heightens risk for providers that aren’t prepared. Here’s what financial institutions should be doing now, says Eric Woodward. Instant downloads. Instant delivery. We live in an age of instant gratification. The banking industry is no exception. An overnight batch process is a lifetime, and three-day settlement feels like …

Three key use cases could dramatically improve rewards programs, user authentication, and supply-chain management. Blockchain is a changing business model for the banking industry, supporting the sharing of value between and among multiple companies to their mutual benefit. While the industry may be enamored of developments on the crypto­currency front, …

Payments-technology provider Bluefin Payment Systems said NCR Corp. is using Bluefin’s point-to-point encryption service at merchants deploying NCR’s Counterpoint Retail Solution to process payments through NCR Secure Pay. Payments provider Merchant Consulting Group, which was founded in 2005, changed its name to Paystri. Credit-union processor PSCU said its new Lumin …

Equifax Inc. disclosed Wednesday that it has entered into a consent order with eight states that requires it to improve its data-protection practices in the wake of the huge data breach last year at the national credit-reporting agency. The breach compromised personal data on approximately 148 million consumers, including Social …

Financial institutions providing banking services to cannabis businesses in states where marijuana has been legalized are no more at risk of being punished by federal regulators than they were before Congress last week rejected legislation to provide them safe harbor. Legislators in the House of Representatives and the Senate separately …

Payments observers wondering when, and where, blockchain technology would take hold may want to pay close attention to cross-border remittances. Alipay Payment Services (HK) Ltd. said on Monday that it has launched a mobile-wallet based money-transfer service between Hong Kong and the Philippines using a blockchain backbone. The service, which …