Despite non-stop news reports about data breaches, Americans over the past year have gotten sloppier about their usage of passwords to protect their financial accounts online. That’s the word from research firm Aite Group LLC and Visa Inc., which recently announced results of their second annual Global Security Engagement Scorecard …

Private-equity firm GTCR, which bought Sage Payment Solutions in August from its British parent company The Sage Group plc, appointed veteran independent sales organization executive Joe Kaplan as chief executive of the merchant processor, and also announced that it would invest $350 million to support Sage. Kaplan is the former …

The Clearing House, a major player in U.S. payments, is getting deeper into the tokenization business through a new pact with Mastercard Inc. New York City-based The Clearing House and Mastercard announced Thursday that TCH has become a Mastercard-certified third-party Token Service Provider (TSP). As such, TCH will be able …

From the Oops Department: First Data Corp. early Thursday quickly removed from its Web site an inadvertently posted press release saying it had a deal to acquire independent sales organization BluePay Holdings Inc. “First Data confirmed that it is currently in discussions with BluePay with respect to a potential transaction, …

For U.S. Bancorp’s Elavon unit, merchant-processing revenues were down slightly in the third quarter, to $405 million, compared to a year ago, according to the bank’s earnings release. But revenue year to date is up 0.2%, at $1.19 billion, compared to the same period in 2016. Payment card manufacturer CPI …

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a controversial antitrust case in which American Express Co. is defending its anti-steering rules for merchants against challenges from 11 states led by Ohio, Reuters reported. Payments provider TransCard Payments LLC announced a partnership with ExpenseAnywhere, an accounts-payable software developer. Travel Centers of America …

Bill.com said it secured $100 million in a funding round led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Singapore-based investment firm Temasek Holdings, bringing total investment in the business-payment network to more than $200 million; the company plans to use the funds for network expansion and to accelerate its distribution among …

Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group said its Telium Tetra POS terminal is now available in Canada through TD Merchant Solutions, the first Canadian acquirer to offer the device. Separately, processor Elavon, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, made the Poynt Co. POS terminal available in Canada. Ingenico said its touchscreen, countertop …

Wells Fargo & Co. launched cardless cash access at its ATMs using near-field communication technology. Consumers using the bank’s mobile app hold an NFC-equipped smart phone near an NFC-enabled ATM after opening and authenticating the bank app. The ATM then prompts for a PIN entry to complete the transaction. Wells said …

As the insurer for deposits at most of the nation’s banks, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. collects a large amount of personally identifying information on bank customers. As such, the FDIC is a target for hackers, who hit it with 54 suspected or confirmed data breaches discovered between Jan. 1, …