The Kroger Co. on Friday opened a new front in its battle with Visa Inc. over acceptance costs with an announcement that it will stop accepting Visa credit cards at its Smith’s Food & Drug Stores chain, which operates 134 stores in seven Western states. The ban is set to …

Business-services firm Accenture invested in and formed an alliance with P97 Networks Inc., a cloud-based mobile-commerce firm specializing in automotive. As part of the agreement, Accenture will develop products from P97 for its clients. P97’s PetroZone service is installed at more than 20,000 U.S. filling stations. Terms of the investment …

To purloin crypto, hackers are importing successful—and very familiar—methods from the world of fiat money. Here’s what experts say needs to be done. Security has always been a big selling point for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The crux of the security argument is twofold. Unlike cash, cryptocurrencies are encrypted in …

PayPal’s octopus-like strategy covers everything from P2P payments, bill pay, and the point of sale to parting ways with eBay. Can Schulman and Co. keep all the balls in the air? PayPal Holdings Inc. president and chief executive Dan Schulman can’t be accused of making small plans. “We aspire to …

Its $22-billion megamerger agreement with First Data sets it up to be a dominant player on both the bank and merchant sides of payments. How will the industry react? Executives at Fiserv Inc. all but popped champagne corks on Feb. 7 when they spoke to industry analysts about the Brookfield, …

As if the payments business wasn’t enough of an alphabet soup, QR codes are now vying with NFC for dominance in mobile payments. Which technology will win out at the point of sale? In the United States, unlike many other parts of the world, near-field communication has been the favored …

Minting money has become a mouse click in the Federal Reserve’s computer. Ninety percent of circulated funds is never materialized in either coins or bank notes. And the recent craze for cryptocurrencies further cements the de-materialization of money. The advantages of digital currency are clear and numerous: it stores on …

Efforts to ban cashless stores are afoot in New Jersey and some of the nation’s largest cities, including New York. But does cash really need legal protection from payment cards and mobile wallets? That’s the question public officials as well as payments and retail executives are mulling. Opponents of cashless …

NetCents Technology Inc. said it signed a 5-year reseller agreement with an undisclosed independent sales organization. The ISO will bundle NetCents’ gateway and cryptocurrency acceptance into its offerings. The Electronic Transactions Association and Worldpay are bringing 10 startup companies to the ETA’s annual Transact conference. The 10 companies, part of …

The 7-year-old startup Affirm Inc. has already signed up more than 2,000 merchants to accept its instant-financing option, but on Wednesday it announced it had bagged the biggest one of all: Walmart Inc. In a move that extends Affirm to the physical point of sale in a major way, users …