After decades of requiring specialized hardware, the payments industry is moving toward PIN entry on off-the-shelf mobile devices. What’s not to like? The payments industry is, if anything, ultra-conservative when it comes to new technology and transaction security. Take PIN pads, for example. For decades, the industry has required that …

Despite concerns that the federal government will crack down on state-sanctioned marijuana, a small band of payment providers is working to cash in on an exploding industry. It’s no wonder that legal marijuana merchants, and their banks, have been feeling of lot of angst in 2018. In only a matter …

Payments observers who think Venmo and Square Cash have locked up the Millennial crowd for peer-to-peer payments may have to reconsider. With the new advertising blitz it announced in late January, the bank-owned Zelle service is making it plain it plans to steal its share of this huge consumer market. …

We often refer to the “wisdom of the market,” investing the stock market with powers of insight almost amounting to clairvoyance. The market does, after all, efficiently compile the sentiments of entire regiments of investors into one tidy number, the stock price. We reflected on this collective wisdom last month …

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 …

The merger of payment processors Vantiv Inc. and London-based Worldpay Group plc was completed Jan. 16, and up next for leaders of the combined company is integration of operational platforms, selling products to a wider customer base, and achieving their goal of $200 million in cost savings in three years. …

  Did you know that the typical business will only hear from around 4 percent of their unsatisfied customers? That leaves the remaining 96 percent with the potential to file a chargeback against a merchant’s business, negatively impacting their bottom line. The ability to maintain positive cash flow is one …

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, …

At a time when the payment card industry continues to struggle with the consequences of data breaches, the last thing acquirers and issuers need is a slowdown in merchant compliance with critical data-security rules. Yet that is what’s going on, warn the Merchant Acquirers Committee and ControlScan Inc. in survey …

Liberal members of the U.S. Supreme Court sharply questioned American Express Co.’s lawyer during oral arguments Monday for a major case involving a challenge to AmEx’s anti-steering rules for its merchants, Reuters reported. A group of 11 states led by Ohio alleges the rules violate antitrust laws and is challenging …