Might the Bitcoin digital currency be heading toward legitimacy among skeptical regulators and law-enforcement officials? Testimony at a U.S. Senate committee hearing Monday indicated that government may be ready to make peace with Bitcoin and, by extension, other new digital forms of payment, though if and when these new systems …

Critics say state-by-state money-transfer licenses deter payments startups and entrench incumbents. Defenders say they protect the public. What’s really going on? By Jim Daly Christopher Ferro, who heads up legal and compliance operations at digital wire-transfer company Xoom Corp., was pleased. It was Sept. 5, and he had just opened …

Announcing details for its “Cash for Registers” program, which it introduced a month ago, PayPal said it will waive processing fees on volume up to $20,000 a month through Jan. 31. The program officially gets under way July 10, which means early-bird merchants could get more than six months’ worth …

Elizabeth Whalen Merchants focus most of their attention on interchange when they think of card-acceptance costs, but now network fees and related charges are in the spotlight. Are such charges an expression of oligopolistic power? When MasterCard Inc.’s new digital-wallet fee takes effect this month, it will join a growing …

  Dogged by seemingly unrelenting bad news that now includes possible violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, leading point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. late Monday said its long-time chief executive officer Douglas G. Bergeron “is stepping down,” effective today. The company named its chairman, Richard McGinn, as interim chief …

A spate of cease-and-desist orders by the state of Illinois against unlicensed money transmitters has ensnared eight payments companies, including such prominent ones as Square Inc. and NetSpending Holdings Inc. An agency quietly issued orders against both firms in January that seemingly would prevent them from doing business in the …

From continued interchange challenges to pokey transactions to uppity merchants, the payments business has a full agenda of pesky problems. Here’s our look at the latest crop, ranked in order of gnarliness. By John Stewart and Jim Daly If it is true that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, …

The judge overseeing the mammoth litigation involving credit card interchange said on Wednesday the controversial proposed settlement appears to meet the requirements for preliminary approval. Judge John Gleeson, however, also said he would hear merchants’ objections to the settlement struck by lawyers for the merchant plaintiffs and the payment card …

MasterCard is up, and Visa’s Interlink is down—way down—as the U.S. debit industry realigns six months after the Durbin routing rules took effect. Other PIN-debit networks? It’s a mixed bag. But this card game is far from finished. By Jim Daly Think of countless Westerns where the bad guys storm …

Born of the transformed world wrought by Durbin, Visa’s new acquirer fee is either a rational response to changed economics or a diabolical exercise of raw power, depending on whom you ask. By John Stewart Bruce Reisman is an angry man. “I’m not a happy camper. I’m constantly looking for …