Thirty-five merchants in the Silicon Valley area are accepting the new Yosemite Card, which caps acceptance fees at 0.3%. The private credit card can do that because it uses blockchain technology to manage transactions. Typical discount rates for network-branded credit cards range from 2% to 3% or more. Palo Alto, …

Mastercard Inc. said it is purchasing Ethoca Inc., a fraud-mitigation firm, for an undisclosed amount. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter. Ethoca works with more than 5,000 merchants and 4,000 financial institutions. Mastercard intends to expand Ethoca’s capabilities and combine the company with its current security …

Repay Holdings LLC said its 2018 payment volume increased 42% to $7.5 billion from $5.2 billion in 2017. Its net income increased 12% to $10.5 million from $9.4 million. Repay is in the midst of a pending merger with Thunder Bridge Acquisition Ltd. Net Element Inc. unit Unified Payments will …

PayActiv Inc. will use the Visa Direct platform from Visa Inc. to offer real-time deposits of earned funds to its clients’ employees. The funds can be loaded onto a Visa debit or reloadable prepaid card. PayActiv also launched its own Visa-branded general-purpose reloadable prepaid card. Testing lab Q-Card Co. said …

Payments company i3 Verticals Inc. announced the acquisition of two unnamed companies at a combined price of approximately $20 million. One is in the public sector and the other is in wireless Internet-service billing. Countering the impression that most users of digital-payments services skew younger, half of first-time person-to-person payment …

Staying on top in payments requires close attention to a few ironclad rules, say Saurabh Wahi and Davis Ward. In the fourth annual Prophet Brand Relevance Index (BRI), PayPal Holdings Inc. was once again, and by far, the best-performing financial-services brand. It’s not just that it continues to outperform such …

As if the payments business wasn’t enough of an alphabet soup, QR codes are now vying with NFC for dominance in mobile payments. Which technology will win out at the point of sale? In the United States, unlike many other parts of the world, near-field communication has been the favored …

Grocery-store giant The Kroger Co. is joining the ranks of retailers with a proprietary mobile-payments service, and adding a debit card to boot. Cincinnati-based Kroger, which has 2,800 stores under numerous banners, last month unveiled Kroger Pay and its accompanying Kroger Rewards debit card. Kroger Pay, available for iOS and …

Hackers gained unauthorized access to credit or debit card data stored with software company CentralSquare Technologies and used for one-time water-bill payments made through the city of Pompano Beach, Fla.’s Web site from Aug. 30 to Dec. 6, 2018, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. Nearly 3,800 customers made one-time payments …

Payments provider North American Bancard Holdings LLC said it is integrating its capabilities with retail-management and point-of-sale software provider Vend. The joint service will be available to retailers through NAB’s resellers. Digital Debit Group, a unit of Qondado LLC, released a Quick Response code-based app for iOS and Android devices …