Celero Commerce announced two acquisitions, those of Elmhurst Financial Services and Tandem Innovative Payment Solutions. Following the deals—financial terms were not disclosed for either—Celero will have approximately 25,000 merchants and process approximately $10 billion in annual payment volume. Payment Alliance International said it acquired ISA-ECash, an ATM operator and developer …

Target Corp. was hit by two point-of-sale glitches this past weekend. On Sunday afternoon the retailer was unable to process certain card transactions at some of its 1,800 stores for about 90 minutes due to an issue at a data center of its payment-services vendor, NCR Corp., Reuters reported. Sunday’s …

At least four payments companies are set to participate in a consortium formed by Facebook Inc. to launch a cryptocurrency next year aimed at commerce rather than exchange trading, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal. Facebook is expected to officially announce the initiative next week. The …

Cross-border payments firm PPRO announced its acquisition of Allpago, a payment and gateway provider in Latin America. Terms were not disclosed. Payments-services provider i2c Inc. said it is working with Zero, a financial-technology company that provides banking services. Payveris LLC completed its $7 million Series D funding round led by …

Los Angeles-area merchants that sell transit tickets on behalf of 25 transit agencies will adopt an Android-based app for ticket sales, Cubic Corp. announced Thursday. Cubic says its Cubic Transportation Systems division is upgrading the existing point-of-sale infrastructure more than 450 retailers use to accommodate the Cubic Mobile for Merchants …

FirstBank, one of the largest privately held financial institutions in the United States, said it has committed to using the Real Time Payments network from The Clearing House Payments Co. Glint Pay Ltd., a startup that lets people make purchases on a debit Mastercard backed by gold, announced a $6.4 …

Groupon announced it will provide GasBuddy, a fuel-price reporting service, with food and drink offers from local merchants via card linking. Consumers will be able to load offers directly to an eligible payment card after completing an opt-in enrollment in the GasBuddy app. POSaBIT, a fintech supplier to the legal …

A survey of more than 3,000 consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, sponsored by Transaction Network Services, shows the heaviest adoption of mobile-payment apps in the U.S., at 59% of respondents, but the highest adoption of contactless payments in the U.K., at 79%. Perhaps not surprisingly, younger …

Visa Inc. on Tuesday furthered its ambitions to expand beyond card payments with the commercial launch of a cross-border network that leverages blockchain technology to help manage business-to-business transfers. The network, called Visa B2B Connect, starts out with coverage of more than 30 so-called global trade corridors and plans to …

Private-equity firm Acuity Capital Partners LLC acquired specialty gift card manufacturer Sterling Card Solutions, according to Sterling’s financial advisor, the investment bank Capstone Headwaters. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Besides gift cards, Sterling makes hotel key cards, identification cards, phone cards, and other products. Half the world’s population, …