With a number of startup companies now offering bill-pay capability based on smart phones, old-line payments companies are starting to respond with services of their own, relying on their reputations as established players in electronic payments. One of the first is The Western Union Co., which this week introduced a …

A recent survey of financial institutions and service providers shows that while attempted takeovers of financial accounts by computer hackers and thieves increased last year, the percentage of successful takeovers dropped. Meanwhile, PayPal Inc. announced a program to pay security researchers for finding flaws in its system. In its second …

Driven by fast growth in “native payments” that dispense entirely with paper checks, total automated clearing house network volume increased 4.4% in the first quarter over the year-earlier period, the ACH network’s highest quarterly increase since 2008’s fourth quarter. Michael Herd, managing director of network rules at ACH governing body …

Nearly half of consumers are interested in using mobile wallets, and they are not necessarily wedded to wallet products from banks, according to research released on Monday. Indeed, some 48% of U.S. consumers surveyed online in April said they are interested in mobile wallets. Of these, 80% expressed a preference …

Jane Adler Durbin’s cap on interchange for big banks was supposed to be the death knell for debit card rewards. Instead, rewards programs are flourishing, albeit with a few twists. “Relationship rewards,” anyone? After caps on debit card interchange rates went into effect last fall, KeyBank took a contrarian approach. …

Hey, mobile-payments types: the fraudsters  are gunning for you. What are you doing to keep fraud at bay? So far, the known mobile-payments security lapses have proven to be more embarrassments than the truly damaging data breaches seen with more conventional payment methods. For example, Square Inc. initially passed out …

A year after its birth announcement, the clearXchange person-to-person payments platform finally is set for its first national rollout through a new service called Send & Receive Money from one of its three big-bank owners, Wells Fargo & Co. But clearXchange, whose other owners are Bank of America Corp. and …

Internet PIN-debit technology provider Acculynk Inc. this summer will start a pilot for a person-to-person payment system that will rely on PIN authentication and debit card network links for money movement. The Atlanta-based company has commitments for the project from between 20 and 30 financial institutions that use Acculynk for …

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, author of the now-famous amendment bearing his name that upended the debit card industry, made a figurative trip to court this week to show his support for retailers challenging the Federal Reserve Board’s final rule implementing his provision in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. In a friend of …

Quick—which of these five common financial products was the only one to grow last year: credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, checking accounts, or personal savings accounts? If you answered “prepaid cards,” give yourself a gold star. New research from Javelin Strategy & Research says fewer consumers in 2011 reported …