By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews For years, pundits have said consumers trust banks more than any other entity when it comes to payments options, but that doesn’t mean financial institutions are always delivering the most innovative services. Now a review of mobile-banking and -payments offerings indicates even the nation’s biggest banks …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The first business day of 2016’s fourth quarter produced several announcements about payments-industry acquisitions. In the biggest, globe-trotting ATM network operator Cardtronics plc will gain a toehold in the Asia-Pacific region by acquiring Canadian ATM firm DirectCash Payments Inc. (DCPayments) for $460 million. Meanwhile, Meta Financial Group …

With an abundance of smart-terminal options available, the question is, when will EMV-weary merchants be ready to deploy this newfangled technology? Emerging from the haze surrounding U.S. EMV merchant adoption, vendor strategies are taking shape aimed at supplanting traditional payment terminals with flashy platforms that promise access to rich ecosystems …

The effort to repeal the Durbin debit regulations ignores deeper issues in the U.S payments industry, including the problems created by a flawed pricing system. U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, recently introduced H.R. 5465, a bill that would repeal the Durbin Amendment. This bill comes on the heels of many …

A gift card marketed by a little-known startup and backed by shares of stock in big-name companies is coming to J-hooks near you. Gift card marketers have dominated the holiday season and other gift-giving occasions in recent years, but now a card is coming to thousands of those checkout-lane racks …

The big banks that run clearXchange are slapping a brand name on the peer-to-peer payments network, five years after founding it. The new name is Zelle, says Early Warning Services LLC, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based fraud-management company that acquired clearXchange last year. A spokesperson says the brand will not appear commercially …

• Processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) reported that John Shlonsky, senior executive vice president of TSYS, and president of TSYS’s Merchant Services segment, has resigned effective Oct 7. Shlonsky joined TSYS in April with the company’s acquisition of merchant processor TransFirst Holdings Inc., where he was president and CEO. …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews With Citigroup Inc.’s decision to join the network, the bank-controlled clearXchange person-to-person payments service has dramatically expanded its reach at a crucial time—just as it faces increasing competition from nonbank P2P rivals and in advance of a major rebranding set to take effect next year. The …

• Payments processor Vantiv Inc. said its eProtect payment-security service now works with Android Pay. Vantiv also announced its validated point-to-point encryption service now includes VeriFone Systems Inc. point-of-sale equipment. • PayPal Holdings Inc. said consumers now can make PayPal payments using PayLease, a payments and billing platform for property …

• E-commerce marketplace Rakuten.com will allow merchants outside the United States to sell to U.S. customers and collect payments in their local currency through a new arrangement with processor Payoneer. • First National Bank of Pennsylvania added a feature called CardGuard to its mobile-banking app that lets users turn their …