Payments provider NXT-ID Inc. announced its FitPay Inc. subsidiary is providing the payments technology for the vivoactive 3, a new smart watch from Garmin International Inc. Dubbed Garmin Pay, the service supports contactless payments made with Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. credit and debit cards from major issuing banks. Earlier this week, Fitbit Inc. introduced Fitbit Pay. In …

Blackhawk Network Inc., a major player in merchant-branded prepaid cards, just gained an even bigger foothold in that market with its $175-million, all-cash acquisition of CashStar Inc., a 10-year-old firm specializing in digital gift cards. Announced Wednesday morning the dealbrings to Pleasanton, Calif.-based Blackhawk a platform enabling mrchants to market …

Target Corp. has integrated its popular Cartwheel couponing app into its main mobile app in preparation for introducing mobile-payment functionality based on quick-response codes, TechCrunch reports, though Target’s deadline for introducing payments on the app is “in flux”and may slip into early next year, according to the online news service. Golden …

American Express Co. says it disagrees with an opinion from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that differences in card products it offered in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Pacific Territories from cards it offered in the United States amounted to discrimination. AmEx says it resolved the differences in 2013 after …

Can the new version of 3D Secure fix the faults of the old one and stem the steady rise of e-commerce fraud? The answer is a big maybe—and here’s why. It has been nearly two decades since the card-network brands introduced 3-Domain Secure 1.0 in an attempt to offer a …

QualPay, a provider of cloud-based, integrated-payments solutions, launched a developer portal allowing integrators to evaluate and deploy payment services. Person-to-person payments by users of services offered by community banks and credit unions average $450, compared to $25 for users of Venmo, a popular third-party app, according to data from Malauzai Software, …

Merchant-payments provider iPayment Inc. is getting into the burgeoning merchant cash-advance business with iPayment Capital, a new unit expected to come online in the fall. Headed by former Bizfi executive Tomo Matsuo, the unit will initially focus on the funding needs of iPayment’s 137,000 merchants. IT security professionals are struggling to respond to cybersecurity …

Factor4 LLC, which offers a white-label gift card and loyalty solution to independent sales organizations and small businesses, has integrated its platform with Click a Waiter Inc., an online-ordering service for restaurants. Payments provider Merchant Consulting Group Inc. announced its payments service will be integrated into Parkloco’s parking-focused software. Processor JetPay Corp. said second-quarter …

Consumer revolving credit outstandings, most of which are credit card debt, hit a record $1.02 trillion in June, the Federal Reserve reported this week. The new high is 0.1% higher than the old record set in April 2008, just as the financial crisis of 2008-09 was gathering steam. Relying on leaked …

Mobile point-of-sale services provider CardFlight Inc. announced that payments provider Central Payment will offer CardFlight’s SwipeSimple mPOS reader to merchants. Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) said home-improvement retailer Lowe’s will use FIS’s BizNOW prepaid service—labeled as Lowe’s PreLoad—to enable contractors to automate their purchasing activities, eliminating the need for their employees to …