New York State’s controversial BitLicense—the nation’s first regulations for virtual currency—are now final, and they’ve got some people on the cutting edge of payments worried about government interference. But Benjamin Lawsky, the official who oversaw the BitLicense’s development, said Wednesday that he hopes intelligent regulation can help modernize what he …

In the last 10 years, the electronic movement of money has become easier than ever. More people are banking online, paying bills electronically, and making payments with their mobile devices. In fact, one-quarter of all smart-phone users have made a mobile payment in the last 12 months, and half of …

The use of smart phones and tablet computers to photograph and deposit checks through online-banking apps surpassed scanner-based remote deposit capture several years ago, but 2014 was a record breaker, according to new findings from research firm Celent, a unit of the Oliver Wyman Group. Some 2,100 banks and credit …

The U.S. Postal Service could generate as much as $1.1 billion in additional annual revenue after five years if it expanded its existing payment services. That’s according to a report from the USPS Office of Inspector General. But a hotly competitive market could dampen those prospects, experts say. Struggling with …

Payments executives today are trying to assess the legacy of Benjamin Lawsky, New York State’s controversial top financial regulator who proposed the first regulations on virtual currencies. Lawsky, who became superintendent of the state’s Department of Financial Services in 2011, announced Wednesday that he plans to step down in June …

The reduced interbank fee of 5.2 cents contained in the same-day settlement plan approved this week by members of NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network, is likely to go down better with major merchants than the 8.2-cent fee contained in the original proposal. “The level of …

  Payment card issuers considering the conversion of their credit and debit cards from magnetic stripes to EMV chip cards need to consider not only the cost, but the security and reputational factors of doing so, says Computer Services Inc., a banking-services company. In its new “The Road to U.S. …

  Banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co. has begun issuing EMV debit cards, with plans to convert its entire debit card portfolio of 34 million cards to chip by the end of 2016, Chase announced Tuesday. Chase began testing chip-enabled debit card issuance in Arizona and Illinois two months …

Few doubt the tremendous growth in mobile payments as consumers increasingly wield their mobile phones at the point of sale. In fact, consumers spent approximately $4 billion doing just that in 2014, a marked increase from the $961 million in 2013, says the “Mobile Proximity Payments Forecast 2015,” a new …

  Seemingly shunned by traditional lenders during the Great Recession a few years ago, small merchants turned to alternative financing to buy inventory and equipment. It’s a trend that shows few signs of dissipating. PayPal Inc. this week said it had lent $500 million in the first 18 months of …