Visa Inc. sees its new RightCliq shopping service as a means by which it can control more e-commerce transaction volume. But it might also represent a tactic by which it can add value to payments at a time when payment processing is increasingly perceived by merchants and consumers as a …

It’s social payments, person-to-person payments, and micropayments all in one. And it’s sweet too. That’s the essence of a new electronic-gift service dubbed “eGift Social” that payment processor First Data Corp. launched recently with ice cream purveyor Cold Stone Creamery as its first client. Cold Stone, a unit of Scottsdale, …

As the payments industry waits for the commercial rollout of near-field communication technology, startups are jumping into mobile payments to fill the void. One of the latest attempts to bridge the gap between physical stores and mobile devices is FaceCash, which launched last month and allows consumers to pay merchants …

Even though a policy change PayPal Inc. announced late last week will dramatically increase some online merchants’ acceptance costs for American Express transactions, their overall costs may remain flat or possibly decline, if the experience of one online retailer is any guide. “There’s at least a good chance it’s not …

The future of payments belongs to innovators that use software platforms to develop new services that can be quickly brought to market, according to David S. Evans, an economist and veteran payment-industry observer. Evans, keynote speaker at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s annual payments conference Thursday, cited PayPal Inc., …

Banks, merchants, and others scratching their heads over the exploding popularity of social networking and its close cousin, social gaming, can harness the online phenomenon for payments but will likely have to jettison decades of settled thinking, experts say. Banks, in particular, will have to wrestle with knotty problems surrounding …

After five months of discussion, the Canadian government is out with the final draft of its Code of Conduct for the payments industry. The merchant-friendly code is supposedly voluntary, but proposed legislation could force it upon payments companies that don't adopt it on their own by May 17. “Payment card …

The concept of an all-digital check, which surfaced in a paper published in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, could move from theory to reality in a matter of months now that a technology startup in Atlanta has won a pair of patents covering applications of the idea. …

News about the latest developments in the hot mobile-payments sector is coming from some familiar sources, such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Visa Inc., and some unlikely ones, such as the state of Arkansas. Wells Fargo is rolling out Visa's text-message and e-mail alert service that lets credit card …

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty submitted his budget plan to Parliament late last week, and his proposals have merchants celebrating. That's because the government is floating the idea of regulating the payment card networks and, by implication, credit and debit card interchange. “There was good news for retailers in yesterday's …