Welcome to the murky world of bank card network fees, on which Visa and Mastercard make handsome livings. The fees reward investors, but what about acquirers and card issuers? Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. have become two of the most beloved companies on Wall Street since their initial public offerings …

The first big wave of Apple Pay contracts began expiring last month, and a big question for both Apple Inc. and the financial institutions that committed to support the computing giant’s mobile-payments app is whether to renew, and under what terms, in the face of less-than-spectacular results for mobile payments …

Europe’s new payments regulation promises much, including free transactions. But do banks need to be forced to do what’s in the best interests of customers and shareholders? The European Union’s revised payment-services directive (PSD2) changes rules governing payments and is intended to, and inevitably will, impact the roles and economics …

Bitcoin’s wild ride has enriched early investors but left payments geeks asking whether the cryptocurrency can ever be used to buy anything. Let’s say you were an early Bitcoin enthusiast, but not too early. Bitcoin appeared on the scene in 2010, but you, ever cautious about unproven stuff like this, …

Last month’s disclosure that hackers accessed up to 143 million credit records at Equifax Inc. has stirred fears of a tsunami of fraud in coming months. But it turns out physical and online merchants are already struggling not only with a huge threat of fraud, but with a stunning fraud …

Despite obstacles, payment processors and fintechs increasingly are looking at cross-border e-commerce for high-growth opportunities. Go global. That’s the credo an increasing number of payment processors and financial-technology firms subscribe to as technology transforms cross-border commerce from yesterday’s luxury into an attainable option for consumers today. Researcher Talie Baker, a …

Years ago, when banks wanted to sign up more merchants for credit card acceptance, they turned to non-bank third parties to sell the service. Now, these same third parties are starting to sell Bitcoin acceptance along with credit and debit cards. Aliant Payment Systems Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based independent …

EMV is getting faster at checkout, at least for customers. Now, as smaller businesses look to adopt chip card acceptance, swifter transactions may have larger implications. Shoppers who try an EMV card at the checkout counter and are turned off by the tortoise-like pace of the transaction are the bane …

Can the new version of 3D Secure fix the faults of the old one and stem the steady rise of e-commerce fraud? The answer is a big maybe—and here’s why. It has been nearly two decades since the card-network brands introduced 3-Domain Secure 1.0 in an attempt to offer a …

Smaller retailers haven’t yet closed the EMV-acceptance gap with big ones, but they are making progress on installing EMV chip card readers at the point of sale, according to findings from a recent survey for the National Retail Federation. The online poll found that 60% of small brick-and-mortar retailers had …