PayPal Holdings Inc. said it is buying Simility, a fraud-prevention and risk-management platform, for $120 million. Once the deal closes—expected in the third quarter—PayPal merchants will get access to Simility’s fraud tools, the company said. This is PayPal’s second acquisition announced this week. Wednesday PayPal said it was buying Hyperwallet for …

A survey from The Fraud Practice LLC, commissioned by Kount Inc., found that Apple Pay acceptance among a group of almost 600 merchants decreased to 35% from 48% a year earlier. Google Pay acceptance dropped from 38% to 25%. Support for near-field communication, the wireless technology that enables Apple Pay and …

Representatives of large retailers including Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc. met with federal regulators this week to voice their concerns about a common buy button for e-commerce under development by the major card networks, The Wall Street Journal reported. The retailers’ main concern reportedly is how a buy button …

Mitek Systems Inc. announced Wednesday that it acquired Paris-based Artificial Intelligence and Image Analysis (A2iA), a developer of text-recognition and imaging software, for €42.5 million ($49.8 million) in cash and stock. The move bolsters San Diego-based Mitek’s already strong position in the remote deposit capture market and gives it access …

Payment card processor First Data Corp. is getting into student-loan processing with its acquisition of Navient Corp.’s technology platform. Terms of the deal announced Wednesday were not revealed. An undisclosed number of Navient employees will become First Data employees, and Jeff Whorley, who has been group president of asset management …

The PCI Security Standards Council issued what it calls a “minor update” to the current version 3.2 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard. Version 3.2.1 adds no new requirements and is meant to eliminate any confusion regarding effective dates for existing PCI DSS requirements and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) …

Visa Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. have extended to Canada an agreement they made in 2016 that gives PayPal access to Visa’s tokenization engine in return for promoting Visa products for PayPal account funding. In related news, Visa said it is expanding its Visa Direct service in Canada, with processor …

We list 37 entries this year, of which only three appeared in our original Guide nine years ago. This year’s Field Guide represents our 10th annual effort to catalog the broad currents in electronic payments by listing some of the more salient players providing alternatives to the big network brands. …

Creating statements optimized for mobile devices is the biggest area of development for new digital payment options from billers, according to recent research done for payment technology provider ACI Worldwide Inc. The study by London-based technology researcher Ovum in December and January gathered responses from 1,032 executives in 10 countries …

The number of debit cards compromised at ATMs and merchant terminals increased 10% in the United States last year, according to antifraud-technology vendor FICO. Newtek Business Services Inc., owner of Newtek Merchant Solutions and Premier Payments LLC, says its payments unit processed $6.1 billion in volume last year. Point-of-sale terminal …