By Scott Dowty, Chief Revenue Officer at Apriva, LLC With smartphones becoming the dominant tool for personal and business communications, mobile commerce is critical for businesses.  Mobile payments are projected to reach $503 billion by 2020,[1] and an estimated 75% of all financial transactions may be cashless by 2025[2], so …

Citing data from the global payment card networks, the U.S. Payments Forum reported in its latest update on the conversion from magnetic-stripe to EMV chip card payments that approximately 57% of in-store card transactions are now “chip-on-chip,” meaning an EMV point-of-sale terminal read an EMV card. Also, acceptance of contact …

ATM manufacturer NCR Corp. said it integrated AFS TrueChecks, a service from Advanced Fraud Solutions for preventing check fraud, into its platform for interactive teller machines. Shift4 Payments announced an integration with Megasys Hospitality Solutions, developer of the Portfolio HMS software application for lodging businesses. AvidXchange, a startup providing payment-automation …

JetPay Corp. said Personify Inc., a technology provider for non-profits, has integrated JetPay’s payment-processing platform into its Personify360 system for managing memberships and business functions. In its first-ever fee change, online marketplace Etsy Inc. said it will increase its transaction fee to 5% on July 16 from the current 3.5%. …

Amazon.com Inc. said Amazon Pay for Alexa Skills is generally available to U.S. merchants and developers. The service enables consumers using Alexa, the voice assistant embedded in Amazon’s Echo devices, to pay for purchases with information already stored in their Amazon accounts. Alexa users grant the merchant’s skill permission to …

We list 37 entries this year, of which only three appeared in our original Guide nine years ago. This year’s Field Guide represents our 10th annual effort to catalog the broad currents in electronic payments by listing some of the more salient players providing alternatives to the big network brands. …

Some 12,000 restaurants in 100 countries already use Toronto-based TouchBistro Inc.’s iPad-based point-of-sale software, but a new agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s WePay subsidiary could put TouchBistro in touch with many more U.S. eateries. TouchBistro and Chase on Tuesday unveiled TouchBistro Payments Powered by WePay, which will launch this …

Sweden’s Klarna Bank AB enjoyed a good year in 2017, as documented by results the privately held online-checkout and financing specialist released on Wednesday. The firm, which was founded in 2005 and has operated a U.S. unit, Klarna Inc., since 2015, had already achieved distinction by ranking third among so-called …

Square Inc. on Tuesday pulled back the curtain, at least a little bit, on its Cash App and the related Cash Card, a Visa-branded debit card. The app has 7 million active users, and cardholders spent $90 million using the card in December, good for annualized volume of $1 billion, …

For years, the change in card credentials that occurs when issuers send out replacement plastic has caused heartburn for cardholders and merchants alike. New card numbers, expiration dates, or three-digit card-verification values can help thwart fraud when cards are lost or stolen, but they also wreak havoc with unaware merchants, …