Activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP has taken an approximately 9% stake in prepaid card and banking services provider Green Dot Corp., according to a regulatory filing. Green Dot issued a statement saying it “welcomes transparent, constructive feedback regarding the common goal of enhancing long-term shareholder value.” In the wake of a big …

Visa Inc. is among backers of an $80-million investment in Currency Cloud Ltd., whose software runs cross-border payments for financial apps, primarily in Europe. The funding round, co-led by Visa and SAP’s venture-funding unit Sapphire, included backing from Google. The funding follows Visa’s $5.3-billion deal to acquire Plaid, whose software enables fintechs …

Visa Inc. said starting Jan. 21 merchants using Visa Checkout will transition to the card brand’s Secure Remote Commerce service. Visa says consumers that have enabled their cards with the service no longer will have to enter the primary account number for compliant transactions. The experience also is compatible with industry tokenization …

Across multiple industries, workers and consumers are increasingly looking for right-now funding. Businesses that want to thrive will have to meet that expectation. In a world where instant gratification is king, Freddie Mercury’s famous lyrics have never rung truer: “I want it all, I want it all, I want it …

InComm, a provider of payments processing for the prepaid market, launched its Vanilla Visa prepaid and gift cards in Mexico.Levelset, a payments provider for the construction industry, announced a $30-million funding round led by Horizons Ventures.Butterfly Network Inc., provider of a handheld ultrasound application for mobile devices, said its technology …

While Facebook has gotten the lion’s share of attention for its attempt to launch a digital currency, the real future of digital-currency payments may lie with the nation’s largest retailer, Walmart Inc. Walmart, based in Bentonville, Ark., filed a patent application on Aug. 1 for a “system and method for …

Close observers of the payments business may have noticed lately that while Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have failed to live up to their promises, some pretty big and important players are nonetheless climbing on the blockchain bandwagon. Perhaps the most prominent of these arrivistes is, of course, Facebook. The social-media …

Researchers and risk-control firms have been monitoring the increase in e-commerce fraud for years, and it’s hit home for a group of merchants surveyed by American Express Co. A newly released AmEx survey that included 400 business leaders says they estimate 27% of their firms’ annual online sales are fraudulent …

U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) planned this week to introduce bills that would bar tech firms from developing their own cryptocurrencies and make it more difficult for non-financial firms to obtain charters for industrial-loan corporations, a form of a bank, according to Politico. Garcia’s office did not immediately respond to a request …

The Federal Trade Commission has started a preliminary inquiry into whether Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., and large debit card issuers are blocking merchants from routing transactions over PIN-debit networks, the Bloomberg Law news service reported, citing anonymous sources. FTC investigators reportedly have contacted merchants and their trade groups, Bloomberg Law said. Spokespersons for …