The U.K. Treasury Ministry has said it is prohibiting merchants from assessing surcharges beginning January 1. Surcharges could be as much as 20% for purchases like a flight, the ministry said in a press release. In 2010, United Kingdom surcharges totaled 473 million pounds ($617 million). “Rip-off charges have no place in a modern Britain and …

Some 19% of consumers participating in a recent survey said they have made a product purchase through Amazon.com Inc.’s Echo or a similar voice-controlled device within the past year. The finding is noted in the Future of Retail 2017 report from Chicago-based Walker Sands Communications, a digital marketing services and …

Visa Inc.’s “Cashless Challenge” campaign to promote electronic payments is not finding much support from the ATM industry, to put it mildly. Last week, Visa announced the campaign, which will award up to $500,000 to 50 eligible U.S. food-service owners who convert their point-of-sale systems to electronic payments only. Visa …

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said users of its Samsung Pay mobile wallet will be able to add PayPal as a payment method, and PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Braintree unit will make Samsung Pay available to merchants via its Braintree Direct service. PayPal will be available within Samsung Pay for in-app, online, and in-store transactions. The …

When fraudsters launch a cyber attack, they may not be their target’s worst enemy. Equally troublesome could be the business’s own staff, according to results of a survey of 5,000 companies around the world released Monday by Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based global cybersecurity firm. It turns out employees not only …

Merchant cash-advance provider CAN Capital Inc. said it has returned to funding following a recapitalization by Varadero Capital, an alternative asset manager. CAN Capital said it will immediately begin funding small merchants eligible for renewal. It will work with a select set of sales partners for new merchant advances. Its products include term …

What’s the measure of a well-performing payment gateway? Time. Or, rather a lack of time. Gateways, which route online transactions to one of multiple payment processors, are judged on their speediness and reliability. That’s why The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments consultancy, started its Gateway Enterprise Metrics platform. The …

Puerto Rico-based payment processor Evertec Inc. completed its $38.5 million acquisition of Chile-based EFT Group S.A., which uses the PayGroup brand. PayGroup provides payment processing and software services to financial institutions throughout Latin America. Alipay, a mobile wallet used primarily in China and abroad by Chinese travelers, said Chinese food supplier Han Feng Inc., …

The pending $145 million acquisition of point-of-sale terminal and equipment distributor POS Portal by ScanSource Inc. will bring together two companies that provide merchants with the equipment they need at checkout counters and back offices, but which have little overlap in their customer bases and distribution channels. Founded in 2000, …

Two notable merchant-acquiring industry acquisitions in the late spring involved such prominent names as First Data Corp. and Sage Payment Solutions. Both focused on the growing integrated software vendor (ISV) niche. Leading processor First Data months earlier indicated it wanted to become a player in payment services for software firms …