A bipartisan group of 18 state attorneys general sent a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to advance legislation “that would allow states that have legalized medical or relational use of marijuana to bring that commerce into the banking system.” Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, forcing many legal cannabis businesses in 29 …

Zelle on Saturday was set to run the first spots in its initial national mass-media marketing campaign, which is centered on the Tony and Grammy Award-winning actor and rapper Daveed Diggs in an effort to appeal to what the bank-controlled person-to-person payments service calls the “mobile majority” of consumers. The …

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank by assets and the biggest bank that runs its own merchant-acquiring operation, reported Friday that it processed $1.19 trillion in payment volume from merchants last year, up 12% from $1.06 trillion in 2016. Chase’s merchant volume rose 13% in 2017’s fourth quarter …

After a short-lived scare, investors in the budding cannabis sector don’t seem to be rattled by the hard line being taken by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions against their industry. But the legal marijuana industry is certainly no closer to getting payment card merchant accounts and other mainstream financial services, …

First American Payment Systems LP launched 1stPayPOS Pro, a tablet-based point-of-sale system that uses an Android-powered device to accept multiple payment methods, including EMV and Apple Pay and Google Pay. Payments provider National Merchants Association said it plans to open an office in London after it obtains a payment-facilitator certification …

As technology firms, both within financial services and those entering it, take larger shares of banking revenue streams and become more like banks, financial institutions will beef up their tech investments as they attempt to counter this pressure, advises Aite Group LLC in a report on 2018 financial-services trends. In …

Vantiv Inc. shareholders approved the processor’s planned acquisition of London-based merchant acquirer Worldpay Group plc with 99.9% of votes cast in favor, Vantiv reported. The companies expect the merger to close Jan. 16 following approval of a British court. The merged company will be known as Worldpay Inc., and its …

If you ask consultants what’s holding back mobile payments in the United States, you’ll get answers ranging from lack of acceptance ubiquity to malfunctions at the point of sale to consumers’ perceptions that payment cards work just fine. Now the nation’s financial institutions have weighed in on the matter, and …

Faster payments in the United States took a major step forward in November with the sending of what many consider the first U.S. faster-payment transaction. A payment was made, in seconds, between U.S. Bank and BNY Mellon using The Clearing House’s Real Time Payments system, a system that meets evaluation …

The blockchain, mobile commerce, fraud, data breaches, and authentication were all hot payments topics in 2017. Expect that to continue into 2018 if the prognostications from several payments executives hold true. Much of their outlook centers on identity and authentication, especially as data breaches, large and small, continue to wreak …