The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. and the PCI Security Standards Council announced they will jointly develop a unified PIN-security standard. Currently each organization maintains a separate standard for PIN use, which could result in an entity being subject to one or both of the existing standards. The joint effort …

While the U.S. Department of Justice’s Operation Choke Point initiative ended last year, over-zealous efforts by other federal agencies threaten law-abiding payments companies in the same way Choke Point did, the chief executive of the Electronic Transactions Association warned Congress on Thursday. Testifying before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on …

Mobile-authentication technology provider Payfone Inc. has raised another $23 million in a new funding round that included retail card payment services provider Synchrony Financial. The exact investment from Synchrony Ventures, Synchrony Financial’s venture-capital arm, wasn’t disclosed in Tuesday’s announcement. An undisclosed institutional investor led the funding round. In addition to …

A Boston-based startup on Tuesday announced a service that lets holders of E-ZPass transponders pay for such things as car washes, gasoline, and drive-through items from their cars. Under an agreement with the E-ZPass Group, Verdeva Inc.’s PayByCar service will start a pilot program that lets users create an account …

Fresquez Companies, operator of nine restaurants at the Albuquerque International Sunport airport, announced it is replacing its vending machines with unattended kiosks for food and other products that use weight-sensing shelves from ShelfX Inc. to determine a consumer’s product selection. Consumers swipe a payment card to unlock the kiosk. Payment …

Card-data analytics company Cardlytics, which went public Friday, was trading at nearly $16 a share at mid-morning Monday, up 18% on the day to that point. The stock is up 30% since its debut. YapStone, which processes payments for apartment and vacation rentals, announced the first closing in a Series …

Data-services provider Womply announced Womply Engage, a customer relationship management service for small businesses that enables merchants to create and manage email marketing programs. In an effort to address data breaches in the financial-services industry, the Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc. said it is seeking experts for an initiative to create …

The electronic funds transfer networks continue to diversify their services as competition for merchant and issuer business in debit payments intensifies. The latest example comes from processor Fiserv Inc.’s Accel network, which says Walmart Inc. is using its service for signature-based debit card transactions. Walmart typically prompts customers paying with …

Federal regulatory initiatives targeting the payments industry may have abated, but a variety of others at the state level and in the court system could require reactions from payments providers. That’s the word from Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs, who spoke Wednesday at the annual Northeast Acquirers …

Artificial intelligence (AI) is so unsettling that we look the other way as it encroaches on the fundamentals of what it is to be human. Why do I say this? As AI is envisioned today, each of us humans will have his or her smart self, or “sself.” This sself …