By Jim Daly Square Inc. on Monday introduced a business-oriented version of its Square Cash person-to-person payments service aimed at displacing checks. The merchant processor also unveiled so-called “$Cashtags,” which Square touts as a simple and fast way for people to get paid through Square Cash. Dubbed Cash Pro for …

Ever since its launch, proponents of Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service have touted the wallet’s high-tech security features, including tokenization of card credentials, a secure element in the phone locking down those credentials, and fingerprint authentication. But now, only four months after that much-heralded launch, banks that support Apple …

From search engines to social media, online competition has heated up for ISOs and acquirers. What does it take to stay ahead of the pack? If acronyms and terms like SEO, PPC, unique clicks, likes, and tweets sound unfamiliar, the latest digital-marketing efforts used by independent sales organizations and acquirers …

Remember 3D Secure? You may be forgiven if you don’t. The password-based technology was all the rage a decade ago as online merchants sought ways to control fraud. But it proved hard to integrate, and merchants complained it interfered too much with customers’ checkout sessions, so it never really caught …

Card-not-present fraud is the bane of any merchant that operates an e-commerce site, and EMVCo, a standards body for the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) specification, hopes its newly assumed oversight of the 3D Secure authentication standard can help them. Operated as Visa Inc.’s Verified by Visa and MasterCard Inc.’s SecureCode, 3D Secure …

  Chalk another payment-card data breach up for the bad guys. Payment gateway Charge Anywhere LLC announced Tuesday it discovered a breach of its payments network. It says it has shut down the malware that caused it. South Plainfield, N.J.-based Charge Anywhere said the malicious software, which was discovered Sept. …

AcquiringBy Jim DalyVolumes have been written about how Apple Pay benefits, or doesn’t benefit, consumers, merchants, card issuers, and even payment networks. But what about merchant acquirers? Train a cold eye on the new Apple Pay mobile-payment service for Apple Inc.’s recently introduced iPhone 6 models and the upcoming Apple …

By Jim Daly and Kevin Woodward Just hours after Merchant Customer Exchange LLC (MCX), the retailer-backed developer of the CurrentC mobile-payments service, posted a response to reports about some of its members dumping Apple Inc.’s rival Apple Pay service, the company notified customers that “unauthorized third parties” had obtained email …

The effort to bring faster payment settlement to the United States gained momentum this week with an announcement by The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC that it plans to build what it calls a “real-time payment system.” The New York City-based organization, which is owned by the largest financial institutions …

  Two payment-services companies have separately introduced services designed to make it easier for merchants and consumers to engage in e-commerce and mobile commerce. Payments-and-authentication-services provider Jumio Inc.’s newest service aims to make it easier for consumers to shop using smart phones and tablets. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Jumio says its …