• American Express Co. plans to roll out an online loan platform this year that will challenge other small-business lenders, including Square Inc. and On Deck Capital Inc., Bloomberg reported. • Independent sales organization Pace Payment Systems announced it is working with @Pay LLC on an integrated text-to-pay service. • …

Depending on your point of view, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., became either a hero or a villain in the payments business back in 2010 with his Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act. Among other things, the amendment capped debit card interchange for large issuers, pleasing merchants and ruffling the feathers …

It was great while it lasted, but it looks like the chip card party is over for VeriFone Systems Inc., the leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, at least for now. The U.S. conversion to EMV chip cards had produced a North American revenue windfall for VeriFone over the past couple …

Speaking of merchant-network skirmishes, fighting between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. broke out anew last month when, citing high acceptance costs, Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit announced that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores through a gradual phase-out set to begin July 18. Wal-Mart’s carefully phrased …

The latest skirmish between merchants and the major card brands has been brewing behind the scenes for months but went public early last month when an advocacy group for big-box retailers charged that a new twist on network rules is slowing the progress of mobile payments. The controversy involves regulations …

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Rich Oliver, payments consultant, speaker, and retired executive vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. We discussed some of the hurdles he sees in the U.S. payments system as it accelerates from decades of glacial evolution to the world …

Last month, I proposed a government-administered program that would offer citizens a cyber passport, a randomized, replaceable, short-lived code that, once issued, would become a requirement for all critical online transactions involving the covered individual. I asserted that this initiative would defeat today’s plague of massive breaches, which turns millions …

Ever since Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. announced their plans five years ago to introduce EMV chip cards in the United States, controversy has dogged the U.S. market’s effort to wean itself off of the magnetic stripe. One of the biggest conflicts has to do with how EMV cardholders should …

The first version of the online-authentication protocol has acquired a nasty rep. With a new version on the way, will it go from four-letter word to four-star performer? It just might be the best-kept secret in payments. An authentication protocol called 3-D Secure, which issuers, acquirers, and merchants have used …

The EFT networks are broadening their product lineups, but are EMV and the global networks getting in their way? Eyeing high-growth payment markets such as e-commerce, the surviving electronic funds transfer networks are in a rush to expand their product menus beyond bread-and-butter PIN-debit transaction switching. At the same time, …