PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo peer-to-peer payment service has been a fabulously popular product among users, but from PayPal’s point of view it has one big problem: It’s free. Since users don’t pay for the service, PayPal has to seek Venmo revenue elsewhere. Now, with a test about to start for …

Last week’s disclosure that hackers had accessed up to 143 million credit records at Equifax Inc. has stirred fears of a tsunami of fraud in coming months. But physical and online merchants are already struggling not only with a huge threat of fraud, but with a stunning fraud cost that …

Square Inc. will apply for a Utah industrial bank charter today, a move that will extend the merchant processor’s move into lending and one which could draw the opposition of banks. The bank will be capitalized with $56 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. The financial operation will be …

Francisco Partners, a private-equity fund, has made an investment in Network Merchants Inc., a provider of payments technology and gateways to merchants and independent sales organizations. The unspecified investment is said to be “substantial.” Consequent to the deal, existing investor Bregal Sagemount will exit, and existing investor Great Hill Partners will …

The Federal Reserve issued a report on Wednesday that indicates the nation’s central bank could play a much more active role in faster payments than many have expected, up to and including providing alternative processing services. Up to now, the Fed has limited its role to sponsoring working groups that …

Enthusiasts may lament the slow rate of adoption for mobile payments generally in the United States, but some researchers are forecasting robust growth for contactless payments via mobile wallets at the point of sale. In a recent report, New York City-based research firm eMarketer said so-called proximity mobile payments will exceed $1,000 …

Performance Matters, which offers professional instruction for public-school educators, has agreed to use SchoolPay, a unit of My Payment Network, to process payments for professional development for teachers in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms. MoneyOnMobile Inc., a Dallas-based company with operations in India, said it processed more than 1 million domestic transfers in …

Proprietary standards for crucial technologies like EMV and tokenization are crimping competition in the payments industry. Here’s how to fix that. As new payments technologies evolve and quickly become mainstream, businesses and consumers should have the whole story. The public has been told these new technologies are stronger and more …

In its latest flirtation with plastic credit cards, online payments leader PayPal Holdings Inc. unveiled its PayPal Cashback Mastercard, a no-annual-fee card issued by Synchrony Bank that gives PayPal account holders 2% cash back on online and in-store purchases wherever Mastercard is accepted. Rewards, on which there are no limits or expiration …

Fitbit introduced its first smart watch, the Ionic, which features contactless-payment capability. Over the coming months users can add tokenized American Express Co. cards as well as Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. credit and debit cards from certain banks around the world, including Bank of America, Capital One, HSBC, and U.S. Bank in the United States, …