• Payment provider CardConnect released a beta version of Bolt P2PE, its cloud-based API terminal service that enables software companies to integrate their applications with PCI-validated point-to-point encryption and EMV devices for card-present transactions. • Wizard World Inc., producer of such pop culture events as Comic Con, is working with Front Gate Tickets for …

Startups and established players alike have been working out payments applications for distributed-ledger technology for several years, and on Thursday one of those applications went commercial. San Francisco-based Wyre, founded in 2013, launched its cross-border payments service based on the blockchain. On the same day, Wyre also raised $5.8 million in a …

After PayPal Holdings Inc. in July signed a sweeping agreement with Visa Inc., and in September reached a similar deal with MasterCard Inc., giving PayPal access to the card networks’ token engines and thereby new access to the physical point of sale, observers wondered when the other shoe would drop. It dropped …

The merger of messaging apps and payments took another step forward Wednesday with the news that The Western Union Co. is allowing U.K. users of the popular Viber service to send money from within the app. The deal follows a similar arrangement the money-transfer kingpin made with Viber for U.S. …

Payments Canada, operator of three major payment systems in that country, issued a five-point plan Thursday to put Canada on a path toward faster and more efficient electronic payments. The plan has many similarities with efforts by Canada’s southern neighbor to modernize payments, but also some differences, according to a …

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay mobile-payments service has added an order-ahead feature that relies on functionality developed by LevelUp, a Boston-based mobile-payments and mobile-loyalty company. The new feature is available today for Chase Pay users at quick-service restaurants in Boston and will be usable at QSRs nationwide in “coming …

U.S. merchants processing with Vantiv Inc. that want to court international e-commerce customers now can offer these shoppers alternative payment methods unique to their locations. Vantiv announced on Tuesday it is working with PPRO Group, a London-based payments provider, to enable non-card payment methods, such as direct debit, bank transfers, cash-based electronic …

• Cyber criminals can guess Visa card numbers and other information required for fraudulent online purchases in a matter of seconds, according to researchers. By distributing multiple guesses across many sites, the method avoids triggering automated guess limits at any single site, according to a paper in IEEE Security & Privacy, a …

A demand-deposit account is the anchor liquidity instrument for most consumers and businesses. For some members of the unbanked, it’s a GPR-prepaid-card account. Policymakers and commercial actors are moving to enable real-time payments between DDAs at thousands of U.S. banks. Policymakers aim to improve payment-system efficiency and enable new and …

The U.S. Treasury Dept.’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, plans to create a special-purpose national bank charter for financial technology companies, a booming field in which payments firms play prominent roles. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry divulged the planned charter during a speech Friday at …