The year 2019 is shaping up to be the worst year yet for data breaches, according to a recent report from Risk Based Security Inc. Through the year’s first half, 3,813 breaches were reported, up 54% from a year earlier. Those breaches exposed more than 4.1 billion consumer records, up …

Payments-technology provider eProcessing Network LLC introduced its Premier Verify SCN, an EMV-certified card reader that supports contactless payments, including Google Pay and Apple Pay. Aimed at small and mid-size merchants, the device is said to cut transaction times by 50%. Software provider Patientco launched two health-care payment applications for Epic …

The proposed acquisition of Worldpay Inc. by Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) is about to clear another hurdle, according to Reuters. The news service is reporting that European Union antitrust regulators are poised to approve the deal without conditions. EVO Payments Inc. said its payments services are integrated into …

Point-of-sale installment-loan provider Sezzle Inc. said its service is now available at “thousands” of online stores in Canada. SSI Group, a provider of payments-related software for the health-care industry, announced a capability that relies on machine learning to predict when providers will receive payments from payers. In related news, U.S. …

Fraud attacks involving rogue mobile applications jumped nearly 300% in the first quarter from the preceding quarter, and fraudulent card-not-present transactions rose 17%, fraud-control services provider RSA Security says in a new report. Bedford, Mass.-based RSA says it flagged 41,313 attacks from rogue apps compared with 10,390 in 2018’s fourth …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it will buy InstaMed, a specialist in health-care payments. Terms were not disclosed. In April, InstaMed released an app with a blockchain prototype that it said will demonstrate how the technology can support adjudication and payment for insurance claims, patient billing, and patient payment. NLS …

Visa Inc. closed on its acquisition of Earthport, a provider of cross-border payments services. The card network says it expects the acquisition to allow it to access “the vast majority of the world’s banked population” to allow them to move money globally. Earthport earlier this year had been the object …

Ahead of a major push for EMV chip card payments at fuel pumps, some 62% of U.S. adults are concerned about the security of their financial data when making payments at fuel pumps or convenience stores, according to a March survey of 1,270 adults conducted by YouGov and released Monday …

Nxt-ID Inc. is getting closer to spinning off its Fit Pay Inc. unit, which markets the contactless-payment technology behind Garmin Pay and Swatch Pay and also this week began shipping a contactless device to allow consumers to spend their Bitcoin holdings at stores. The spin-off, first announced in September, will …

FitPay Inc. has started shipping its contactless, coin-shaped Flip device, which allows users to spend Bitcoin as U.S. dollars at stores. The company said on Wednesday it plans to “ramp up” production of Flip though the first half of the year. The news comes after Fit Pay announced in January …