By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Mobile-payments services have plenty of issues with adoption and usage, but battery fires aren’t likely to be among them. While it’s true that a consumer can’t use a mobile wallet if he’s afraid his smart phone will ignite, payments experts say the problem that developed last …

• Noble House Hotels & Resorts, which earlier said it had been notified by the U.S. Secret Service about a possible card-data breach at its Ocean Key Resort & Spa, said it has found through an investigation that card data may have been compromised at 11 other hotels, restaurants, and …

• E-commerce services provider Digital River Inc. released a white paper, “The Subscriptions Generation,” which offers guidance for e-commerce decision-makers and product marketers considering online subscription-based business models. • The Western Union Co. announced it is offering free money transfers from agent locations in most countries to more than 450 agent …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Gift card marketers have dominated the holiday season and other gift-giving occasions in recent years, but now a card is coming to thousands of those checkout-lane racks that will let budding investors buy or give away shares of stock in a favorite company.

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews For drivers passing through the Chicago area, there’s now an app that will handle payment on the 292-mile-long ribbon of toll roads snaking through 12 counties in Northern Illinois. FastToll, from a Las Vegas-based developer called Pragmistic LLC, arrives just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, …

• Shift4 Corp. announced it is among the first payment gateways to introduce a software update to support the various quick-chip solutions from the major payment brands for faster EMV chip card transactions. • Uber and Visa Inc. launched Uber Local Offers, a program that enables Uber riders to earn …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Traffic on the nation’s automated clearing house network has perked up over the last couple of years, and the latest statistics show no slacking off in that trend. Second-quarter transaction volume on the ACH grew 5.6% in the quarter ended June 30, down from the first …

• The ATM Industry Association issued an updated position paper in support of variable surcharges, or so-called “convenience fees,” for ATM transactions; the trade group says global network policies effectively force ATM deployers to assess uniform surcharges despite differences in network interchange rates and fees, and that the coming of …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Two hotel and resort chains this week reported apparent data breaches involving payment cards used at their locations. These latest compromises come less than two weeks after compromise occurred between early March and mid-June. Millennium, which has 14 luxury or boutique U.S. properties, isolated and then took …

• The clearXchange peer-to-peer payments network will be renamed Zelle, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The service is operated by Early Warning Services LLC, which is owned by some of the nation’s biggest banks. • Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. marked the first anniversary of its Samsung …