First Data Corp. executives Monday highlighted rapid growth in the processor’s Clover Network line of tablet-based point-of-sale devices, and also said attrition has come down significantly among small merchants. Not so hot are First Data’s joint merchant-acquiring ventures with big banks, but the company insists their revenue softness is only …

Artificial-intelligence technology, on which a number of payments applications have begun to rely over the past year or so, just keeps getting hotter. Nearly 700 funding deals for AI startups were concluded in 2016, up 33% from 2015, according to a report released this week by CBInsights, a New York …

How often do you pause to reflect on the pace of change in the electronic-payments business? Yes, we’re all quite busy, so such moments are rare. But they are instructive. A couple of decades ago, the notion of paying merchants with a debit card linked to a checking account and …

Millennials don’t care for or trust the traditional advertising tactics that have been a staple of the payments industry for eons—84% say they don’t like them at all. For consumer-facing brands, the implications of these findings are quite significant—particularly since cultivating and rewarding customer loyalty is a foundational marketing element. …

Some 57% of large companies are either seriously studying or in the process of deploying blockchain technology, according to a Juniper Research survey of nearly 400 company executives. Most-often-cited uses include settlement, land registry, and digital fiat currency. The study cautions, though, that some companies may be underestimating both the challenges of …

Mastercard Inc. reported Thursday that its switched transaction volume grew 17% in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Discover Financial Services’ Pulse debit network saw volume jump 15% after growing slightly in the first quarter following a long period of decline. Purchase, N.Y.-based Mastercard said its transaction count hit 16 billion versus …

PayPal Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp. announced an agreement whereby PayPal will tokenize BofA cards for in-store transactions based on the PayPal wallet. The in-store payments will work with a PayPal service using near-field communication that PayPal says is coming, without adding details. Discover Financial Services said in its second quarter earnings …

With a rapidly expanding e-commerce market, online fraud-detection and -prevention efforts are poised to grow over the next few years. Merchants are expected to spend $9.3 billion annually on these efforts by 2022, says Juniper Research. That’s a 22% increase from the 2017 spending total, though it pales in comparison …

Speculation of a possible buyout apparently is boosting the stock of payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), according to press reports; one equity analyst recently issued a report saying a buyout of TSYS by processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) would be “a home run.” TSYS is scheduled to …

The forecast for person-to-person mobile payments is a heady one. Expect double-digit growth through 2021, says research firm eMarketer Inc. As more consumers adopt the growing number of P2P payments services, the value of their P2P mobile transactions will increase to $244.03 billion, up 103% from the $120.38 predicted for …