American Express Co. reported first-quarter U.S. card-billed business of $195.5 billion, up 7% year-over-year. International volume slipped 1% to $100.2 billion, bringing AmEx’s total billed business to $295.7 billion, a 4% increase from $283.8 billion a year earlier. Discount revenue rose 5% to $6.2 billion. AmEx said its average worldwide …

In advance of a key European regulation taking effect late this summer, San Francisco-based payments provider Stripe Inc. has acquired Touchtech Payments, a developer of authentication software. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed. Founded in 2014, Dublin-based Touchtech specializes in code that establishes customer identities for financial …

A federal judge has banned payments provider Priority Payout Corp. and its owner Thomas Wells from ever directly or indirectly working in the payment-processing industry following a violation of a 2009 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Announced last week, the ban, ordered by U.S. District Court Judge James C. …

Mobile-authentication technology provider Payfone Inc. raised $24 million in a funding round led by credit-reporting agency TransUnion with participation from previous investor Synchrony Financial and two institutional investors. TransUnion said it will integrate Payfone’s Trust Platform and Trust Score with its identity products, and become Payfone’s primary partner for regulated …

CardFlight Inc. is adding point-of-sale terminals to its roster of SwipeSimple-compatible products with the launch Tuesday of SwipeSimple Terminal. This puts the SwipeSimple POS software on more devices in addition to tablets, personal computers, and mobile devices. More than 50,000 merchants currently use SwipeSimple, CardFlight says. SwipeSimple Terminal initially is …

Independent sales organization Payroc LLC launched RewardPay and CashRewards, programs aimed at offering merchants card-network-compliant services for surcharging and cash discounts at the point of sale. A report from Transaction Network Services Inc. shows 26% of survey respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia who own a …

Merchant-services platform provider Shopify Inc. on Monday launched its first North American brand campaign, a marketing effort aimed at entrepreneurs that could have the side effect of making Shopify one of those rare payment processors that has a modicum of brand recognition among consumers. The reason for that is that …

Uber Technologies Inc. doesn’t say a lot about its payment strategy in the registration statement it issued Thursday ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering of stock, but the filing does reveal the ride-share leader is an enormous generator of payment card volume and card-acceptance fees. The statement says …

Two the nation’s biggest banks on Friday reported gains in card volume, with JPMorgan Chase & Co. showing double-digit increases in merchant-processing volume as well as card spending. Chase’s first-quarter merchant volume totaled $356.5 billion, a 13% increase over the same period in 2018. The massive Chase Merchant Services unit …

A prominent merchant group says that in the face of declining authorization, clearing, and settlement costs, it is time for the Federal Reserve to lower its regulated debit card interchange rate. The Retail Industry Leaders Association issued its call after the Fed last month released its latest bi-annual study of …