The National Retail Federation reported 2019’s holiday retail sales grew 4.1% over the same period in 2018 to $730.2 billion. Online and other non-store sales rose 14.6% to $167.8 billion and are included in the totalE-commerce services and payments provider Shopify Inc. is offering new businesses what it calls “starter loans” of $200 through …

Visa Inc. said starting Jan. 21 merchants using Visa Checkout will transition to the card brand’s Secure Remote Commerce service. Visa says consumers that have enabled their cards with the service no longer will have to enter the primary account number for compliant transactions. The experience also is compatible with industry tokenization …

Customer data from 4 million payment cards stolen in breaches at four restaurant chains has gone up for sale in the Joker’s Stash underground bazaar, KrebsOnSecurity reported. The breaches occurred at nearly half the 1,750 total locations of Krystal, Moe’s Southwest Grill, McAlister’s Deli and Schlotzsky’s, the latter three of which are owned by …

Newtek Business Services Corp., a provider of loans, merchant processing, and other services for small businesses, acquired a 51% stake in POS on Cloud, developer of payments and business-management systems for restaurants, retailers, assisted-living providers, and parks and golf courses.Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said Eyefinity, a software developer for …

U.S. District Judge Margo K. Brodie heard final arguments from lawyers Thursday on the fairness of a proposed settlement in the 14-year-old MDL 1720 credit card interchange case but, as attorneys involved in the case said was probable, did not make an immediate determination from the bench. Brodie in January gave preliminary …

Twenty European banks are working on setting up a pan-European payment system to challenge Visa, Mastercard and technology companies such as Google and PayPal, according to press reports. The project is code-named PEPSI, for Pan European Payment System Initiative.In a development that signals an opening in China’s long-protected payments environment, Chinese mobile-payment giants …

The Kroger Co. lifted its acceptance ban on Visa credit cards at its Smith’s Food & Drug and Foods Co subsidiaries, according to news reports. Kroger, citing what it called high acceptance costs, first banned the cards at its small Foods Co chain in August 2018 and extended it to the larger Smith’s …

Ride-share provider Uber Technologies Inc. announced Uber Money, an update to its roster of financial services, mostly for its drivers. Among the products is the relaunch of the Uber credit card in a deal with Barclays. Uber Money also can provide Uber drivers real-time access to their earnings in an Uber Debit …

Quick-service restaurant chain The Krystal Co., which has 342 locations in 10 Southeastern states, said it is in the early stages of “actively investigating a security incident” that may have compromised credit and debit card numbers used in payments at some of its stores from July through September.A. Wayne Johnson, …

NCR Corp. said it acquired Anderson, Ind.-based Midwest POS Solutions Inc., a point-of-sale systems provider serving 1,000 restaurants in Indiana and Kentucky. Midwest POS was one of the first dealers of the NCR Aloha POS system for restaurants. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.ATM security specialist TMD Security launched One Touch Access, …