By John Stewart Ever since the launch of Apple Pay more than a year ago, mobile wallets have followed a pattern of recruiting financial institutions to enable their network-branded credit and debit cards to work in the wallet apps. But retailers are getting in on this action, as well, with …

Last month, the well-known journalist Ted Koppel came out with a very alarming book, Lights Out, arguing that the cyber community agrees that the power grid in the United States is vulnerable to a devastating assault that would incapacitate the system for many months. In this scenario, a new generation …

By John Stewart It was bad, but it could have been much worse. Just as the celebrated Cyber Monday online-shopping frenzy was gearing up to full blast, PayPal Holdings Inc.’s payment service, a major processor for e-commerce, began hiccupping. Merchants reported problems with processing orders and customers complained about long …

Powered by growth in mobile payments, so-called digital commerce for 2015’s holiday season will grow 14.3% to $70.1 billion from last season’s $61.3 billion, Internet metrics firm comScore Inc. predicted Wednesday. Reston, Va.-based comScore defines digital commerce to include desktop e-commerce and mobile commerce. The firm predicts desktop e-commerce for …

By John Stewart The annual holiday-spending frenzy is about to kick off, and if a consumer survey released on Monday is any indication, it will feature a lot more debit card and cash usage and a lot less mobile payment than you might have expected. Some 39% of consumers intend …

Is Apple Inc. laying the groundwork for an application that would let individuals pay each other electronically? Citing “people familiar with the matter,” The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the tech kingpin is doing just that, and has already started talking to a handful of major banks. If the …

Merchant processor Optimal Payments Plc announced it has changed its name to Paysafe Group Plc. The move reflects the company’s direction following the closing of its Skrill acquisition in August. The deal bolstered the company’s stake in digital wallets. “This was a major milestone for the company, and although we …

When it comes to payments between individuals, cash and checks are still wildly popular, even among Millennials, despite years of penetration by online and mobile methods. Indeed, 71% of consumers made at least one person-to-person payment with cash last year, and 56% did so with a check, according to a …

The Federal Reserve may be shepherding a nationwide effort to bring real-time payments to the United States, but that doesn’t mean payments companies are marking time while that process unfolds. The latest development is Tuesday’s announcement that bank processor Fiserv Inc. will work with risk manager Early Warning Services LLC …

Visa Inc. may be in the business of credit and debit cards, mobile wallets, tokenization, EMV chips and virtually anything involving electronic payments, but its latest financials tell the real story—it’s all about cash. On a day dominated by news of its pending $23 billion takeover of Visa Europe, Visa …