Most of the public attention on online fraud centers on traditional merchants seeking to identify fraudulent orders, detect and prevent data breaches, and the like. But fraud also is a major concern for the online-game publishers and social networks that operate exclusively in the virtual world. Because of the unique …

Speculation has flowed freely about the effects of the controversial “Durbin amendment” on merchants, card issuers, and the payment card networks should the interchange-regulation measure become law. But data about how consumers would be affected are scarce. Javelin Strategy and Research, however, says research it conducted late last year, in …

Non-bank threats to banking franchises like electronic payments are nothing new, but if a researcher is correct, banks and the card networks they built could soon find themselves under assault from a whole new batch of players that have found a niche in social networks and online gaming. “I don’t …

Evidence mounted over the past week of the interest at least some major e-commerce processors have in using mobile platforms to penetrate the physical point of sale. First came word that Bling Nation Ltd., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based mobile-payments processor that depends on contactless stickers, is working on an integration …

Although many U.S. merchants and processors have met Visa Inc.’s July 1 deadline for replacing unapproved point-of-sale software applications with ones that meet requirements of the Payment Application data-security standard, or PA-DSS, many non-compliant card-processing applications remain in the marketplace, Visa says. While Visa would not release numbers on compliance, …

The rich in merchant-acquiring market share got richer last year, but nearly everyone got a little poorer when same-store sales are the measure, according to the latest annual study of the acquiring industry by Mercator Advisory Group Inc. The top five acquirers processed 74% of U.S. general-purpose payment card charge …

Already claiming to be the leader in mobile payments, PayPal Inc. on Thursday announced it had optimized its Express Checkout service for mobile devices. The new mobile service caps a busy week for PayPal that included the disclosure that alternative-payment provider Bling Nation Ltd. is developing a PayPal application. PayPal …

Merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has installed its new end-to-end encryption terminals at more than 1,020 merchants since commercially launching the technology on May 24, the company reports. Heartland also will be rolling out a small USB card reader, or “wedge,” later this month, says Steve Elefant, chief information …

As the payments industry waits for the commercial rollout of near-field communication technology, startups are jumping into mobile payments to fill the void. One of the latest attempts to bridge the gap between physical stores and mobile devices is FaceCash, which launched last month and allows consumers to pay merchants …

PayPal Inc. has introduced a capability for its new Adaptive Payments service that lets consumers pay merchants with a credit card while within an application, regardless whether the consumer has a PayPal account. The San Jose, Calif.-based e-commerce processor also announced late last week it is delaying until the fourth …