MasterCard Inc. reportedly wants to acquire VocaLink Ltd., operator of the United Kingdom’s Faster Payments system, for just under £1 billion ($1.4 billion), according to reports in the British media Thursday. Such a deal, if consummated, could shake up the budding faster-payments movement in the U.S., where VocaLink is building …

The real reason mobile payments haven’t taken off is that they haven’t offered anyone a compelling reason to replace cash or cards, says Nick Holland. Around 15 years ago, I wrote a thesis on the potential for mobile payments using radio-frequency ID technologies, such as Bluetooth and the recently announced …

The Federal Reserve may be shepherding a nationwide effort to bring real-time payments to the United States, but that doesn’t mean payments companies are marking time while that process unfolds. The latest development is Tuesday’s announcement that bank processor Fiserv Inc. will work with risk manager Early Warning Services LLC …

In the push to speed up settlement, banks must take care not to lose sight of the implications for fraud, compliance, and consumer satisfaction. In a world where there is almost nothing that cannot be done directly from a smart phone, there is a growing expectation among consumers for immediacy. …

The increasing penetration of digital payments worldwide is helping drive conversion of point-of-sale terminals, vending machines, and parking meters from standalone devices to connected machines, according to a report released Tuesday by Berg Insight, a Gothenberg, Sweden-based research firm that follows the wireless market. Worldwide, Berg forecasts the number of …

When Acculynk Inc. introduced its Payzur person-to-person payments service two years ago, it saw it as a way of leveraging the company’s virtual PIN-pad technology along with PIN-debit networks to enable faster, guaranteed payments between individuals. n Last month, MasterCard laid down a gauntlet with its MasterCard Send, a back-end …

MasterCard Inc. on Tuesday launched a person-to-person payment service in the United States that will allow debit card holders to send money to any other individual with a debit card account, regardless of the card brand and with the money arriving nearly instantaneously. The new service, dubbed MasterCard Send, also …

These days, the payments business is all about mobile innovation. But, as ever, it’s also about adoption. How many of these players will crack that nut? If anything rules in the payments business, it’s adoption—the ability of a new payment service to win usage by consumers and uptake by merchants. …

By Jim Daly Tests of alternative payments and smart-phone apps are in the cards for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Bureau has excised more than 90% of the paper from its payments processes but still must traverse a difficult “last mile” to become a nearly …

A panel of two bankers and a banking-services provider gave an upbeat appraisal Monday of industry moves toward real-time payments, but indicated financial institutions still have a long way to go to serve customer demand and meet competitive thrusts from non-bank players. “We’ve got more work to do,” said Roy …