The payments industry’s relatively rapid move into digital transactions and broader business software is doing much to fuel the consolidation of big payments providers, according to an analysis posted Friday. Just since January, the industry has witnessed deals that will see Fiserv Inc. acquire industry giant First Data Corp. in …

NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network, reported 27 billion ACH transactions for 2018, including 23 billion on the network and 4.1 billion off-network transactions, including mostly on-us volume. PayPal Holdings Inc. is closing two offices in Hunt Valley, Md., and will lay off their 380 workers …

Spectrum Concessions has chosen a mobile-ordering app from Noble Inc. to allow customers at several Spectrum venues to order and pay for food and drinks with a smart phone. The venues include the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, the Long Center in Austin, Texas, and the Hennepin Theatre Trust in Minneapolis. …

Regulators and the states currently are more active than Congress on issues affecting the payments industry, according to the Electronic Transactions Association’s point person on governmental affairs. The divided Congress probably won’t pass any major payments-related legislation before the 2020 elections, says Scott Talbott, a senior vice president at the …

Square Inc. said concession sellers at the Washington Nationals’ ballpark will be equipped with the Square Terminal device to process fans’ food-and-drink orders in their seats. Fans will also be able to use Square’s Caviar app to order food from concession stands. The Major League Baseball season starts Thursday. The …

By Debra Campbell and Steve Fortson As the banking industry moves toward real-time payments, there are some practical technology considerations that are too often being overlooked, most notably, a growth of fragmented and unstructured connections between the legacy mainframe and the service-oriented architecture (SOA) platforms. Unfortunately, what we are seeing …

Apple Inc. on Monday is expected to make several major announcements, possibly including one regarding a credit card it is reportedly developing with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that would work with the iPhone and Apple Pay, according to news services. Apple’s iOS 12.2 update will integrate a new wallet app …

Mastercard Inc. announced contactless-payment capability will go live in 20 U.S. cities “within the next few years,” starting with subway and bus systems later this year in New York City, where the company is working with transit-technology firm Cubic Transportation Systems. Bitmo, a startup that offers mobile gift cards that …

The eBay Inc. online marketplace is adding Google Pay as a payment option as it rolls out its new managed-payments platform to sellers. Google Pay will be activated in April and will be available via the app or mobile Web, and users will be able to use it on desktops …

As more and more companies adopt tokens as a proxy for the primary account number and other sensitive payment data, the day is fast approaching when the utility of the technology will move beyond the payments box. That’s the forecast from Nate Morgan, senior director for product management at CyberSource, …