By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews If Amazon.com Inc.’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market Inc. closes later this year as expected, it could set the stage for a radical redefinition not just of in-store payments, but of the checkout experience itself, observers say. The deal, which Amazon announced late last …

First Data Corp. is hoping that its scale—it says it processes more than 2,800 transactions per second coming from more than 6 million merchants—will give its new Fraud Detect service an edge in thwarting fraudulent transactions. Announced Thursday, Fraud Detect uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, fraud scoring, cybersecurity intelligence, …

For a company looking to grow via acquisitions, the increasing complexity of the payments business can be an advantage. That’s what Atlanta-based Avangate Inc. is banking on. On Friday, the online processor for digital goods clinched a deal to acquire 18-year-old e-commerce gateway 2Checkout.com Inc., and its appetite is hardly …

Co-Op Financial Services, the big credit-union service organization based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., announced Monday that it had acquired Des Moines, Iowa-based payment processor TMG for $100 million. Co-Op had been the minority owner of TMG, until recently known as The Members Group, and bought out the rest of the …

Circle Internet Financial has moved beyond Bitcoin to social payments. But its ambitions don’t stop there. Bitcoin remains a financial-services buzzword. But it’s becoming more and more clear that the cryptocurrency will be relegated to back-office processes outside the consumer’s awareness. Seeing this movement, Jeremy Allaire, founder and chief executive …

In the United States, prepaid money is the most rapidly growing payment instrument. It is a lifesaver to the unbanked and the underbanked. It is the payment vehicle used in an increasing number of creative arrangements. But it is also the platform of choice for many fraudsters, and it amounts …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Square Inc.’s gross payment volume rose 34% year-over-year in the fourth quarter, generating strong revenues and other financial metrics despite large merchants accounting for a bigger share of volume. The San Francisco-based merchant processor late Wednesday afternoon also gave an upbeat outlook for 2017, all of which …

• Abilene Diagnostic Clinic has adopted the One Bill solution from health-care payments processor InstaMed, allowing patients to deal with a single statement embracing all ADC locations. • In related news, Change Healthcare, a specialist in analytics software, introduced Personalized Communications for its billing and payments solution. The new service is aimed at billing …

• PayPal Holdings Inc. reported in a filing that it has received subpoenas from the U.S. Department of Justice “seeking the production of certain information related to our historical anti-money laundering program.” PayPal said it is cooperating with the DoJ and cannot predict the outcome of the government’s investigation. • A point-of-sale software …

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group is among many payments companies making announcements Monday at the National Retail Federation’s annual Big Show in New York City. France-based Ingenico says its ePayments division and its research arm Ingenico Labs now offer payment-enabled messaging bots for e-commerce merchants. Bots are an artificial intelligence …