The payments business has had more than a year of chip card struggles. Now, a long-time observer of the payments industry argues there is a better solution for the threat of rising fraud. As 2016 wound to a close, nothing short of a massive business hangover loomed over the U.S. …

As POS systems gain ground, vendors strive to keep merchants happy with more than single-purpose payment terminals. Enter the app store. Adaptability as a survival mechanism not only has a role in nature, but in the payments arena, too. One area where that’s manifested is in the adoption of a …

The financial-services industry is closer than you think to widespread adoption of biometric authentication, says Kirsty Tull. Here’s why. There is always that scene in action and spy movies. You know the one. In Mission: Impossible, they must defeat the facial-recognition system to access some secret data. James Bond’s gun …

Cyberfraud is maturing into a stable, highly profitable business, adopting modern management principles and investing heavily in innovation. It has already evolved into an impressive, sophisticated, well-managed, capitalistic environment, composed of bold hack-innovators, hack-services providers, hack analytics, hack market promoters, and some hacking line soldiers, who are the ones who …

Counterfeiting is still the king of U.S. payment card fraud, according to the Federal Reserve’s recently released Payments Study 2016, but probably not for long thanks in part to the coming of EMV chip cards and the aftereffects of data breaches. Counterfeit fraud accounted for 44% of U.S. payment card …

Payments companies are taking strides toward integrating rewards for everyday purchases into mobile wallets, while making it easier to redeem those rewards at point-of-sale terminals. Last month, vending-payments specialist USA Technologies Inc. said it is integrating its MORE. loyalty platform into Apple Pay. The deal is designed to induce more …

• Processor Vantiv Inc. reported its Merchant Services unit increased net revenue in the quarter ended Dec. 31 14% to $412 million from $363 million in the year-ago quarter on a 13% rise in transactions and 1% increase in net revenue per transaction. For all of 2016, Merchant Services’ net revenue jumped …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Vantiv Inc.’s

• Merchant acquirer Square Inc. announced a promotion that waives processing costs for small businesses on more than $12,000 in Apple Pay charge volume. It will give free processing on Apple Pay transactions for small-business customers that enroll this year in a promotion that includes purchase of Square’s contactless and EMV chip card reader …

• Bloomberg reported that prepaid card services provider Green Dot Corp. is in talks to buy UniRush, a smaller competitor co-founded by Russell Simmons, the music-industry entrepreneur behind the rap label Def Jam. • In another possible deal, U.K.-based accounting and payroll software firm Sage Group plc is mulling a sale of its U.S. …