Acquirers and independent sales organizations wanting to improve their standing among merchants should take note of four trends affecting payments today, according to Bill Dobbins, head of acquiring and enablement at Visa Inc. Dobbins, speaking at the Western States Acquirers Association conference in Las Vegas this week, outlined why the …

Card91, an India-based technology company, introduced a platform that offers a digital prepaid card that also functions as an ID and access card. The product is aimed at corporate employees and students. KM Malta Airlines, a new air carrier, has agreed to adopt a payments-orchestration platform from CellPoint Digital. Online-security firm DefenseStorm said it …

Echelon Payment Solutions Group may be a new name in the acquiring industry, but its roots extend to 2006. Once affiliated with EVO Payments and known then as EVO Platinum Services Group (EPSG), Echelon is its own entity offering payment services and providing support for its sales partners. Melville, N.Y.-based …

Cubic Transportation Systems Inc. early Tuesday launched Umo ScanRide, a QR-code-based fare-collection solution for transit systems. To pay a fare using ScanRide, consumers scan a QR code with a mobile phone. The fare is then displayed on the user’s phone screen and debited from her ScanRide wallet. Consumers can fund …

Alviere, a platform for embedded payments, has launched its Loyalty Wallets product, which features pay-by-bank functionality. The wallets can be funded by ACH transfer or direct deposit. Bank3, a community bank in Tennessee and Mississippi, has chosen Tyfone Inc.’s Instant Payment Xchange technology, meant to facilitate real-time payments on the FedNow system. The …

MyKaarma, a payments service for automobile dealers, said its surcharge service, myKaarma Surcharge, has achieved compliance with Honest Pricing Laws that have been enacted in several states, including California and New York. Surcharging allows merchants to add their cost of credit card acceptance to a bill when a customer presents a credit …

The U.S. Department of Transportation is looking into airline rewards programs with an eye on protecting consumers from potential unfair, deceptive, or anticompetitive practices, the department says. Many consumers use cobranded airline credit cards to earn points in these programs, though the DOT’s focus is on rewards, not on card-issuing …

Chase emailed its cardholders Friday that it will soon offer Paze, a new online checkout service from Early Warning Services LLC, and that eligible Chase credit and debit cards will be linked to Paze. The bank will notify cardholders when Paze is ready for use. Chase also provided the option to opt …

American Express Co. said fintech Knot is testing a new feature that enables select AmEx cardholders to add their payment information at participating merchants, including Bloomingdale’s, Hilton, and Macy’s. With Knot, AmEx can enable its customers to update card-on-file information instantly, AmEx said, using Knot’s CardSwitcher technology and proprietary AmEx tech. …

The bill may look sensible on the surface. But it’s a mistake to try conjuring up competition by diktat. Since his unsuccessful efforts in 2008 and 2009 to impose price controls on merchants’ card-acceptance costs, longtime payments-industry nemesis Sen. Ricard Durbin, D-Ill., has been on a crusade to gut the …