By Jim Daly Canada’s Finance Minister, Joe Oliver, on Monday issued an update to the government’s 5-year-old Code of Conduct for the credit and debit card industry. The update adds consumer protections, addresses the growth of mobile payments and premium cards, and makes other changes intended to give merchants more …

Independent sales organization CoCard Anderson and bill-payment software company Systems East Inc. are targeting insurance, government, and utilities merchants in a new program announced Tuesday. Merchant processing is not as widely adopted in these merchant categories as in retail, making them attractive prospects, CoCard says. In the deal, Systems East, …

Bitcoin had a rough first quarter, leaving open questions about its ability to break into the mainstream of global payments. But that didn’t stop investment cash, which poured into startups supporting the digital currency at a record rate. That’s according to a quarterly report released Friday by Coindesk Research, which …

Debit-rewards programs offered by banks appear to be rebounding a little, with younger consumers more motivated than other age groups to use them. That’s according to a new report from payments-research firm Mercator Advisory Group Inc. Debit rewards programs fell out of favor with banks following passage of the Durbin …

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau named four merchant-acquiring companies as defendants in a lawsuit against six people and their associated debt-collection companies that allegedly attempted to collect millions of dollars in so-called “phantom debts” from consumers that the consumers either did not owe or were not owed to the debt …

These days, in the Age of the Breach, securing sensitive payment card data has become a giant task for merchants, issuers, and processors. The security rules these players live by are contained in the PCI Security Standards Council’s data-security standard. But it turns out compliance with these rules is a …

While big-time companies like Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Samsung Electronics Co. prepare to battle it out for control of mobile payments, evidence is emerging that consumers may be strongly inclined to reward merchants that accept mobile wallets and punish those that don’t. Some 30% of consumers are using a …

For centuries, consumer credit was extended via a bank loan, which overtaxed borrowers to pay interest from day one. Businesses, though, were extended a line of credit on which they drew as needed, and they only paid interest from the moment they used the money. Then, in the late 1950s, …

  It’s not enough to sell payments services to churches and charitable organizations. They want assurances their unique needs will be met. It might seem counterintuitive, but merchant-services profits are to be had serving nonprofit organizations. But it’s not as simple as knocking on doors or harvesting online leads. It …

In less than one grim month, American Express lost two cobranded partnerships and a major court case involving its merchant-acceptance rules. But the 165-year-old payments company is far from finished. As cold as this winter was in most of the country, it was considerably chillier at American Express Co. The …