It didn’t get a lot of press at the time, but the acquisition by merchant acquirer Global Payments Inc. of Accelerated Payment Technologies in 2012 proved to be the starting point of big acquirers pairing up with integrated software vendors and value-added resellers to deepen their relationships with merchants. Atlanta-based …

It’s been a year since the so-called faster EMV burst on the scene at some grocery stores on the West Coast, and so far officials at the chain that owns the two store brands involved in that launch couldn’t be more pleased with how the technology has smoothed out EMV’s …

There’s some good news for U.S. debit card issuers in the form of reduced fraud rates, according to the 2017 Debit Issuer Study released Monday by Pulse, the electronic funds transfer network owned by Discover Financial Services. The fraud-loss rate for signature-debit transactions fell 30% from 2015’s 2.6 cents per …

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 …

Smaller retailers haven’t yet closed the EMV-acceptance gap with big ones, but they are making progress on installing EMV chip card readers at the point of sale, according to findings from a recent survey for the National Retail Federation. The online poll found that 60% of small brick-and-mortar retailers had …

Planet Payment Inc., a specialist processor focused on multi-currency and related international payment services, this week said it has begun “a process to explore and evaluate potential strategic alternatives focused on maximizing shareholder value,” a process that could result in the sale of the company. The review also could result …

In a brief filed Aug. 7, the U.S. Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court not to take up an appeal over a lower-court ruling upholding a so-called steering practice by American Express Co. The DoJ, which in 2010 joined 17 states in suing AmEx over the practice, argues …

The financial crisis of 2007-09 forced many banks to retreat from small-business lending, leaving a gap that digital-payments companies have rushed to fill. The latest move in this direction came Thursday, when PayPal Holdings Inc. said it has a deal to buy Swift Financial Corp., a Wilmington, Del.-based lender founded …

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 …

After two delays, processor Vantiv Inc. and London-based merchant acquirer Worldpay Group plc finally announced a formal deal Wednesday that has Vantiv acquiring Worldpay in a deal that creates a global processing powerhouse. The cash and stock deal values Worldpay at $12 billion, a 34% premium to Worldpay’s six-month volume-weighted …