Sound Payments issued a slate of updates for its point-of-sale system, including a way for retailers to categorize returns. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Sound Payments says the new return-categories feature enables merchants to catalog returns by size, reason for return, defective, and other custom variables. It also has a reporting component for …

UnionPay, an international payment card network based in China, said it is now accepted in 183 countries and regions, with issuance outside the Chinese mainland exceeding 230 million cards in 81 countries. Issuance outside Mainland China commenced in January 2004. Consumer-finance and card issuer Synchrony said it is testing a browser extension …

Nuvei Corp. said it has agreed to process e-commerce transactions for Galeries Lafayette UAE, a unit of French Department Stores LLC. Linnworks, an e-commerce inventory and order-management software provider, said it is working with Lightspeed Commerce Inc. to enable Linnworks clients to connect to Lightspeed Retail. Fintech Varo Bank N.A. announced it is offering a …

MagicCube Inc. has partnered with processor Shift4 Payments Inc. to make its iAccept softPOS application available to Shift4 merchants. MagicCube’s i-Accept app turns Android smart phones and tablets into PCI-compliant payment devices that can accept contactless payments using tap-to-pay with or without a PIN. The deal is considered a boost …

With a variety of checkout strategies confronting merchants, NCR Voyix, which styles itself the “world’s largest self-checkout vendor,” has launched new self-checkout technology that relies on a software-as-a-service foundation that enables stores to offer barcode scanning, contactless payments, and other features. The company’s announcement came on the opening day of …

Banking giant Bank of America Corp. reported combined credit and debit card volume of $228.9 billion for the fourth quarter, up 3% year-over-year. The number of BofA users of the Zelle peer-to-peer payments network grew 18% to 21.5 million, while Zelle volume climbed 25% to $101 billion. Late in 2021, the …

Despite its formidable reach, the social-media platform X faces a steep climb to achieve its goal of launching a peer-to-peer payments service, according to payments experts. X, formerly known as Twitter, announced in a blog post earlier this week its plans to add P2P payments to its platform this year …

The battle between merchants, on one hand, and financial institutions and payment networks, on the other, over the Credit Card Competition Act continues to heat up. The Merchants Payments Coalition on Thursday sent a letter to Congress signed by nearly 2,000 merchants, including hundreds of small businesses, calling on legislators …

The big U.S. payments processor Global Payments Inc. announced Commerz Globalpay GmbH, a joint venture with Commerzbank to offer digital-payments technology to businesses in Germany. Global Payments will hold a 51% stake in the venture. The United Kingdom-based retailer Co-op said it has moved its payments technology into a cloud configuration on a platform …

Affirm Holdings Inc. has extended its reach into the vacation-property rental market through a partnership with Evolve Vacation Rental. Consumers renting vacation properties through Evolve can use Affirm as a payment option for bookings exceeding $500. Consumers pay in monthly installments and as little as 0% interest. Evolve says it …