Consumer shopping during the Thanksgiving-holiday weekend increased 9.4%, almost tripling the growth rate last year, according to card-transaction data released by First Data Corp. In 2014, the holiday-shopping weekend grew by 3.5% over 2013. The Atlanta-based processor analyzed the volume of transactions made at more than 820,000 merchant locations that …

Known for its iPad-based point-of-sale system, Revel Systems said Friday it is making a mobile-commerce app available that merchants can use with their own brands. The app—available now for iOS and Android devices—enables merchants to more easily allow consumers to access product information, check loyalty data, place orders, and pay …

An unlikely panelist showed up Wednesday at the Fall 2015 Mobile Payments Conference in Chicago: country music singer and songwriter Rick Monroe, who urged his listeners to get down and get to work on apps that can help musicians sell songs and merchandise. “Mobile has become a way for artists …

Installations of mobile point-of-sale devices in the United States and Canada will hit 17.4 million in four years, forecasts 451 Research in its “Mobile Point of Sale: Smart Devices Earn a Growing Share of Global Payment Acceptance” report released Thursday. If it proves accurate, that forecast will yield a 155.9% …

Security Notes Shopping is an emotional experience. Shops lure us, play us, and make us shop and pay against any and all rationality. Only now, technology is about to redress that imbalance. The biggest impact will be felt by ordinary commodities. No one gets overly excited about buying eggs or …

Retailers will take their time upgrading their point-of-sale systems for compatibility with the EMV chip card standards, finds EKN Research’s “2015 Retail Point-of-Sale Blueprint” report. Only a minority of retailers—mostly the largest ones—will be ready by Oct. 1, though within two years 70% of them will be ready for the …

Never one to mince words, Bob Carr, chief executive of the big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc., predicts that demand for Apple Inc.’s new Apple Pay mobile-payment service will force the retailer-controlled Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) to abandon a policy of requiring its members to accept only MCX’s CurrentC …

This week, Amazon launched Amazon Local Register, the mobile POS (mPOS) solution that may well kill mPOS solutions. That’s not to say that they won’t exist anymore, but it is to say that mPOS as a value proposition in and of itself is really going to struggle moving forward. Square, …

Up Solutions, the cloud-based point-of-sale division of United Merchant Services Inc., has set its Up Tab restaurant POS system at zero cost for resellers, the company announced today. Separately, Harbortouch has updated its POS Sales Center iPad app with new functions. Comprising an Android-based tablet, stand, printer, card reader, and …

With interchange costs ravaging their balance sheets, most merchants will tell you they’d far rather take cash than cards. Not Split Bread. In fact, the San Francisco sandwich shop doesn’t just discourage cash, it plain won’t accept it. Cards only, please. “Cash is expensive,” David Sliverglide, chief executive of Split …