Some dragons are harder to slay than others, and a few are fire-breathing. Here’s our annual look at the industry’s fiercest beasts, this time ranging from the endless war over interchange to eager-beaver regulators to the woes of digital currency. By John Stewart and Jim Daly If payments were easy, …

By Jim Daly A summer poll of payments executives found that less than a third think Bitcoin and other so-called math-based virtual currencies will greatly change how money is moved within 10 years. But majorities, some strong, also think that Bitcoin will spur responses from PayPal Inc., the big wire-transfer …

In its latest gambit to commercialize instant payment settlement, Dwolla Inc. on Tuesday unveiled a service that will let users pay online merchants using credit rather than their own money. The service, which the Des Moines, Iowa-based alternative-payment processor is calling simply “Credit,” is intended to accelerate progress toward faster …

By Jim Daly In a move that apparently signals its intention to become a more diversified financial-services provider, Square Inc. on Tuesday introduced a person-to-person payments service called Square Cash. The service, which works through email or mobile apps, has no fees for either the sender or recipient and only …

  CardFree, a mobile-wallet startup founded by payments-industry veterans with experience in mobile-payments apps, says its first merchant partner is Sonic Drive-In, a quick-serve restaurant chain with more than 3,500 locations. CardFree features a geo-location app to identify the consumer’s proximity to the merchant for marketing purposes. The company, which …

The deployment, which is expected to start later this year, is being characterized by both companies as a national rollout rather than a pilot. Paydiant’s Chris Gardner, a co-founder of the Wellesley, Mass.-based company, refers deployment questions to Subway, which refuses to comment beyond the companies’ joint press release. The …

By Kevin Woodward The appointment on Tuesday of Jeffrey S. Sloan as the new chief executive of payment processor Global Payments Inc., succeeding long-time chief executive Paul Garcia, surprised hardly anyone. Sloan, who joined Global Payments as president in 2010, has a history with the company. Garcia, who was named …

By Kevin Woodward   Six months after leaving point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc., Douglas G. Bergeron is leading a new enterprise targeting financial-services and payments companies for acquisition.   Dubbed Opus Global Holdings LLC, the new company has $500 million at its disposal to buy companies. Bergeron is collaborating …

ACI Worldwide Inc.’s $109 million deal to buy Official Payments Holdings Inc. is a bid to grow its transaction volume and pairs well with its January purchase of Online Resources Corp., analysts suggest. Official Payments is a processor that specializes in online payments to government entities. ACI Worldwide is paying …

Social-media payments specialist Chirpify on Thursday introduced a service that lets marketers promote hashtags on a wide variety of media to solicit purchases. The so-called action tags can appear on TV or radio commercials, in print advertising, or on billboards and then be used on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the …