Host card emulation had a moment in the sun a few years ago as Google and banks geared up their mobile wallets. Since then, HCE’s adoption has widened even as its public profile has faded. What’s next for the technology? It just rolls off the tongue: “host card emulation.” As …

• Merchant processor Sterling Payment Technologies, a unit of EVO Payments International, has partnered with RPower Point of Sale, a vendor of point-of-sale software for restaurants, to offer an EMV solution for the hospitality industry. • Merchant processor Square Inc. introduced Caviar pickup, a new feature on its Caviar restaurant food-ordering and delivery service that …

In an effort to cement its ties with restaurants, Square Inc. announced Wednesday it is adding a pick-up feature to its Caviar meal-delivery service and has acquired the OrderAhead restaurant pick-up service. Both moves capitalize on the trend time-strapped consumers buying restaurant meals for consumption elsewhere, be it at home or …

• In separate blog posts, PayPal Holdings Inc. executive vice president Bill Ready and chief executive Dan Schulman reported the company has reached 200 million total consumer, merchant, and charity accounts. They also said the PayPal’s One Touch authentication technology has signed up 50 million consumers and more than 5 million merchant accounts, …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Square Inc.’s stock hit a record high Thursday in the wake of a strong fourth-quarter financial report. Now the merchant processor is looking to an updated point-of-sale system for retailers called

• Puerto Rico-based Evertec Inc. said revenue in its merchant-acquiring unit declined 1% in the fourth quarter to $23.1 million while revenue in its payment-processing segment grew 0.4% to $28.9 million. Evertec announced it has an agreement to buy Chile-based EFT Group S.A., a payment processor and software company that uses the …

• Royal Dutch Shell plc said it is finalizing the deployment of EMV-compliant point-of-sale terminals for inside use at more than 11,000 of its U.S. locations. Currently, almost 80% of the locations are EMV-compliant, with the rest expected this spring. As the inside-the-store project is completed, the petroleum company will shift …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews As the U.S. Supreme Court gets nearer to considering the 2012 interchange settlement, the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association asked the court to let stand an settlement. The trade groups, which for the most part represent large retailers, argue, in part, that the …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Not all private-label charge and prepaid card programs are equally successful, and so neither will be the proprietary mobile wallets recently launched by merchants. Factors that are likely to lead to a successful app include the strength of the retailer’s brand, its commitment to either convenience …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Big markets like the United States and China have been boosting EMV chip card shipments for years, but now those two growth engines are sputtering. Worldwide contactless EMV. Currently, most EMV cards in the U.S. market require users to insert the card into a chip reader …