The European Union on Thursday advanced legislation to curb the power of tech companies, legislation that would force them to provide more billing options to consumers on their highly popular app stores. In related news, Google and the big music streaming service Spotify this week announced Spotify users with Android …

Apple’s Tap to Pay has captured the industry’s attention. Now the question is how far it can get with it—and how rivals will react. Apple Inc. stirred up the point-of-sale industry last month with an announcement that it will introduce within a few months technology that will enable merchants to …

The Visa Acceptance Cloud will virtualize POS terminals. What will that mean for acquirers and merchants? The dawn of a new era for point-of-sale terminals may be upon the payments industry with the announcement earlier this year of the Visa Acceptance Cloud. The platform aims to move to a cloud-based …

Apple Inc. rattled the payments industry on Tuesday with its announcement of technology that will let merchants accept card and Apple Pay transactions directly on an off-the-shelf iPhone with no attachments, but rivals say they’re taking the news in stride. “We’ll feel some impact, we’ll feel it a little bit, …

The vision of turning mobile devices into tap-and-go POS terminals took a big step forward Thursday as MagicCube Inc. announced i-Accept Cloud, an open, cloud-based softPOS acceptance platform. i-Accept Cloud is expected to simplify the creation of new merchant payment acceptance and digital commerce solutions. By connecting the currently siloed …

Payroc WorldAccess LLC said it acquired East Commerce Solutions, a merchant service provider, which has more than $2 billion in annual processing volume. Terms were not disclosed.NCR Corp. said it has closed on its acquisition of LibertyX, a provider of software for cryptocurrency transactions at ATMs and on various payment-acceptance devices. LibertyX …

Get ready for even more sophisticated in-car virtual assistance. Cerence Inc., which develops in-car virtual technology, has launched Co-Pilot, its advanced assistant that uses artificial intelligence and vehicle integration to help with such tasks as ordering and paying for a coffee while a mile away. Cerence says its technology—it has …

Online checkouts remain a challenge for many merchants as 40% report cart abandonment as more than a minor issue and 41% say fraudulent transactions have risen since the pandemic set in, according to Paysafe Ltd.’s “Lost in Transaction” report.PayPal Holdings Inc. said merchants on the Wix.com Ltd. e-commerce platform can offer …

The hype around Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay has quieted considerably. But that doesn’t mean the three big wallets are sitting still. When the so-called Pay wallets—Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay—launched in 2014, 2015 and 2018, respectively, they did so to great fanfare. At the time, …

Two trends have buoyed the payments business since the onset of the pandemic—online shopping and buy now, pay later capability—and on Wednesday Klarna AB launched a new app that exploits both trends by letting consumers use Klarna’s BNPL service regardless of whether the store is a Klarna merchant. The new …