By Jim Daly and John Stewart The U.S. conversion to EMV is close to two years old now, and in its wake have come unquestioned benefits. But this cure for widespread counterfeit card fraud also has ushered in excruciating side effects. It’s easy to forget that the Europay-Mastercard-Visa chip card …

For the China-based Alipay payments service, pursuing niche merchant markets in North America no longer is good enough. “When we’re looking at partners, we’re looking for ubiquity,” says Souheil Badran, president of Alipay North America. Those partners so far include First Data Corp., which in May opened its huge U.S. …

• POS Portal Inc., a point-of-sale equipment distributor, said it is now supplying payment equipment via Retail Realm, a POS software distributor. • Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. said it is providing payment technology for Hyundai Motor UK’s “Click To Buy” platform, which lets consumers buy a car online from any participating …

While the benefits of electronic transactions for health-care payments—reduced operating costs, efficient processing, enhanced reliability, and strengthened security—are widely acknowledged, the health-care industry has faced many challenges keeping pace with standard electronic-payment adoption rates. And the problem will only get worse unless payment-solution providers expand their offerings to support the …

• PayRange Inc., which specializes in mobile payments for vending machines, has extended its service to coin-operated laundry machines. The service is available for Speed Queen and Maytag machines, with other makes to come, the company said. • Quick-serve restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. updated consumers about a breach of its point-of-sale system …

Two prominent names in payment card security, ControlScan Inc. and EchoSat Inc., announced Thursday that they will merge. The combined companies, to operate under the ControlScan name, will service more than 775,000 card-accepting merchants across North America. ControlScan works with merchant acquirers and payment processors to provide merchants with a …

• North American Bancard Holdings Inc. and Total Merchant Services Inc. will retain their unique brands and products in the immediate future following NAB’s acquisition of TMS, said NAB chief executive Marc Gardner. NAB announced the TMS acquisition last week. “The TMS brand will remain intact, its sales staff remains as …

With little fanfare, so-called behavioral biometrics began appearing on the radar screens of payment card security executives about two years ago. Now, however, experts predict behavioral biometrics will assume a more prominent role in protecting payment transactions as e-commerce and mobile commerce continue gaining share of retail sales and the …

Merchants’ actual fraud costs are up for the third year in a row and their total fraud-related expenses also are rising, according to the latest True Cost of Fraud study from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Fraud as a percentage of the revenues reported by the 653 retailer risk-control executives surveyed for …

• Phillips 66 Co. moved closer to the launch of its mobile-payments service for fuel purchases with the unveiling of its mobile-commerce platform developed in conjunction with P97 Networks Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay. • Payment gateway Shift4 Corp. announced its cofounders, J. David Oder and Katherine Oder, are entering …