By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Card controls, a way to empower consumers to control when and where their credit and debit cards are used, are evolving. Viewed as one way to contend with the rampant data breaches fueling payment fraud, card controls are moving beyond the simple on-off switching capability of the …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Add Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to the list of merchants that will accept Chase Pay transactions. JPMorgan Chase & Co., backer of the nascent Chase Pay mobile wallet, says the massive retailer will begin accepting the bank’s payment service in more than 5,000 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores, …

Two years after the launch of Apple Pay, here’s a look at Cupertino’s entry and at services from the other tech titans that have joined the mobile-payments game—and at how financial institutions are reacting. Of the three major third-party wallets, Apple Pay is now 2 years old while Alphabet Inc.’s …

• RYDE Technologies Inc. launched an overhauled version of its ride-hailing app RYDE, first launched last year to compete with Uber and Lyft. As with other such apps, RYDE processes payments in the background against a stored card, summons taxicabs and black cars rather than private vehicles. • The Bancorp Inc., …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews As payments firms seek to commercialize emerging online marketplaces, they’re starting to leverage automated routines that promise to overturn traditional transaction methods and, just possibly, deliver on the long-sought goal of so-called frictionless payments. This week, both MasterCard Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. announced new initiatives …

• Bank of America Corp. said its debit card purchase volumes totaled $71 billion in the third quarter, up 2.5% from $69.3 billion a year earlier. U.S. credit card purchase volume increased 2% to $57.6 billion. BofA said it now has 21.3 million mobile-banking users, a 15.8% increase from 18.4 …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Its first full quarter of ownership of the big Costco Wholesale Corp. cobranded credit card portfolio helped to boost Citigroup Inc.’s North American purchase volume by 57%, the giant New York City-based bank reported Friday.

With an eye on having tangible proposals out by mid-2017, two Federal Reserve task forces are about to evaluate 19 plans to make electronic payments faster. Speed and security usually come to mind first when payments executives talk about improving the U.S. payment system, but other factors increasingly important to …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Best known nationally for its powerful basketball teams, the University of Connecticut is about to make a name for itself in cybersecurity. UConn’s School of Engineering and retail credit provider Synchrony Financial on Tuesday announced that Synchrony is providing $2.2 million to fund a new

• The Independent Community Bankers of America trade group submitted a faster-payments proposal to the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force; developed with North American Banking Co., the ICBA proposal includes a white-label mobile application and a payments directory to enable transaction settlements through the automated clearing house network’s new …