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, …

Independent sales organization BluePay Processing LLC acquired Security Card Services, a merchant-services provider for community and regional banks. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Canadian mobile-payments provider Dream Payments has expanded a dealer program whereby wireless and electronics distributors sell the company’s mobile point-of-sale terminal in-store and online. Currently, more than 100 retailers …

It’s what some may consider a bold forecast for contactless payments in the United States, but Juniper Research is predicting that, by 2022, 34% of electronic payments will be contactless, up from less than 2% in 2017. United Kingdom-based Juniper released its forecast Monday in a report called “POS and …

A pioneering mobile-payment wallet for mass transit has reached a milestone. Chicago’s Ventra app has been downloaded more than 2 million times since it became available in November 2015, according to an announcement Monday from Cubic Transportation Systems, the San Diego-based company that developed the app. Commuters have bought almost …

A number of daunting challenges face the U.S. payments industry as it sets out to make speedier transactions available everywhere in the country within three years, according to a report released this week by Aite Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. Among these challenges are the absence of an industrywide mandate …

A global payments initiative called P20 will convene its first meeting Oct. 10 in London. Government officials and regulators from the United Kingdom and the United States are expected to attend, along with 20 payments-industry leaders. The conference is intended to promote the importance of payments and financial technology to …

While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working toward an April 1, 2018, effective date for its massive rule for prepaid accounts, prepaid card industry advocates are urging the agency to further delay the rule by another year. In a comment filed this week with the CFPB, which regulates all …

Merchant processor and payments-technology provider Cayan has achieved EMV chip card certification with processor Worldpay US, adding to EMV certifications with Chase, Vantiv, First Data, and Elavon. Worldpay’s parent, Worldpay Group plc, will be acquired by Vantiv in a $12 billion deal expected to close early next year. Merchant processor Net Element Inc. said its PayOnline …

Digital-banking platform developer Urban FT Inc. disclosed early Wednesday that it has made a “compelling offer” for financially troubled Digiliti Money Group Inc., a provider of mobile remote deposit capture services for banks. News of the all-cash offer, whose size wasn’t disclosed, sent Digiliti’s beaten-down stock soaring on the Nasdaq …

The international financial-messaging service SWIFT is set to offer a gateway for U.S. financial institutions to link to a real-time payments facility offered by The Clearing House, a payments company owned by major U.S. banks. Team One Credit Union, a Michigan financial institution, has added Bukoski Agency, a fuel retailer, to its …