Capping years of complex litigation, a federal court on Friday approved a controversial multibillion-dollar settlement of a class-action antitrust case challenging credit card interchange rates. With his imprimatur, Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has brought apparent—but only apparent—finality to a …

Chargebacks may not be lumps of coal, but many merchants may consider them as such this holiday season. n Chargebacks are the process by which cardholders contest charges they didn’t make or don’t recognize when they receive their statement. A chargeback filing typically requires a merchant to dig up supporting …

If a recently released annual survey is any indication, small merchants remain unconvinced they are vulnerable to data breaches, pay far too little attention to security, and regard PCI simply as a cost item. “We still see drastic deficiencies in the number of merchants who think they’re at risk,” says …

Gideon Samid • Gideon@BitMint.com Whether you like Oba- ma­care or you want it repealed, you must agree that health-care payments are a major issue in need of fixing. One-seventh of the U.S. economy is stuck with choking complexity, only highlighted by the pathetic collapse of the Obamacare Web site that, …

Linda Punch The Federal Trade Commission wants to outright ban four payment methods used by legitimate telemarketers and fraudsters alike. That would shut off a significant source of transactions for at least some merchant processors. Alternative payment methods such as remotely created checks have become increasingly popular over the past …

There will be no “one wallet to rule them all.” The phone itself is the new mobile wallet, not any one app. Mobile wallets are more about marketing than about payments, and a white-label approach will let banks and merchants keep control of the vital customer data they need, says …

Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards will come to the U.S., but probably not before the payment card networks postpone current deadlines and offer strong incentives for merchants that might include interchange relief and dumping the signature as a cardholder- verification method, according to a new research report from Celent LLC. Card …

Mobile devices, which have fundamentally changed so much of the electronic payments business, are now shaking up the cross-border remittance market. Twelve-year-old Xoom Corp., a relative newcomer to the business, says 37% of its transactions in the third quarter originated on mobile devices, compared to 22% a year ago. More …

ABnote is adding support for near-field communication (NFC) technology to its miWallet mobile wallet with the addition of the Wave device from Israeli technology vendor On Track Innovations Ltd., ABnote recently announced. The device connects to mobile devices using the audio jack on smart phones and tablets. When connected, it …

  Google Inc. today announced the availability of a payment card to accompany its Google Wallet online and smart phone-based service. The card, which is funded by money held in a consumer’s Google Wallet account, can be used at point-of-sale locations that accept MasterCard Inc. transactions. MasterCard was part of …