By Jim Daly Leading wire-transfer providers The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc. both reported big growth in their online businesses in the first quarter while merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. posted strong increases in charge volume. • They’re still a small portion of its overall business, but …

Facing increasing competition from digital money-transfer upstarts, wire-service giant Western Union Co. is making alliances to add value to its traditional money-movement product. This week, it announced a deal with Skype, the video-calling service, which allows Skype users to top up their accounts by handing over cash at Western Union …

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group and chip-maker Intel Corp. will work on producing a tablet that supports EMV chip card and near-field communication (NFC) transactions, Ingenico announced Thursday. The tablet is in response to the U.S. payment card migration to the EMV chip card standard, and the growing adoption of …

Many merchants speak of the gains to be made by fusing in-store with digital commerce. Now, quick-service and fast-casual restaurants are turning to a variety of hardware to make it happen. CKE Restaurants Inc., parent of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. fast-food chains, and TGI Fridays Inc. are using Microsoft …

  Tablet-based point-of-sale company Revel Systems says it has secured $90 million in Series C financing, a windfall it will use to keep up with growth for its iPad-based POS systems, the company announced Tuesday. Private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, which has long invested in payments companies, …

  Money-transfer provider MoneyGram International Inc. has launched MGiAlloy, a technology platform to enable greater use of alternative financial services. MGiAlloy, which can be used on kiosks, online, on mobile device or at points-of-sale, enables consumers to transfer money, pay bills, cash checks, reload prepaid cards and other services. Dallas-based MoneyGram …

Enthusiasts are betting Bitcoin ATMs will be the next step in taking the digital currency from monetary curiosity to mainstream acceptance. Since the first Bitcoins were mined in 2008, evangelists for the fledgling digital currency have dreamed of making Bitcoin as ubiquitous as dollar bills. To say the least, the …

Finding a kiosk to make money transfers via Western Union Co. has become easier if there is a Walgreens or Duane Reade store nearby. Western Union and Walgreens announced this week a deal that makes Western Union money transfers available at the existing photo kiosks inside more than 7,650 Walgreens …

Prepaid card services provider InComm Holdings Inc. announced today that it has struck a “strategic partnership” with Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), parent firm of the fledgling mobile-payments network owned by merchants and recently branded as CurrentC. But exactly what the partnership will do for the long-aborning MCX is not clear. …

Even people in the payments industry are confusing the terms, and that’s obscuring some important developments in mobile acceptance, says Scott Holt. The convergence of mobile payment and mobile-payment acceptance is interesting because it enables a true mobile-to-mobile transaction. Scott Holt is vice president of Roam Data Inc., Boston, Mass. …