The data-breach Grinch is stealing Christmas from a big restaurant supplier and Lucky Supermarkets, a major West Coast grocery chain, both of whose payment card acceptance systems were compromised recently by fraudsters using different techniques. The breach at Queens, N.Y.-based Restaurant Depot LLC, which also does business under the …

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  Payments startup Dwolla Corp. eliminated its transaction fee last week on all payments under $10, a bold move in itself, but it apparently has much bigger things in store. For one thing, the Des Moines, Iowa-based company is testing a system that co-founder Ben Milne says will make automated …

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In a marked escalation of a conflict that began when MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. raised small-ticket debit card interchange rates, USA Technologies Inc. has stopped accepting MasterCard debit cards in its wireless network of 100,000-plus vending machines and other unattended card-accepting locations. The Malvern, Pa.-based operator turned off MasterCard …

  PayPal (Sort of) Embraces NFC …   With rivals like Google Inc., Visa Inc., and Master­Card Inc. having jumped into near-field communication technology, there has been no little speculation in the payments business about when, or whether, PayPal Inc. would take the plunge.   Wonder no more. The eBay …

  Gideon Samid • Gideon@AGSgo.com       Protests against the so-called tyranny of the 1% can take several forms. One such form is the Occupy Wall Street movement, with its deep-seated distrust of banks and corporate bailouts. But while OWS may get the headlines, cyber-enthusiasts have found their own …

  By Lauri Giesen   Now that the Durbin rates are in place for debit cards, questions are swirling about debit’s growth prospects, the fate of PIN debit and of the small-ticket market, and the implications for prepaid cards.       Imagine a world where banks try to get …

  By Peter Lucas   As check volume dwindles, processors and banks are scrambling to find new ways to leverage the fixed costs of their check-image archives.       It’s no secret that paper-check volume is in steady decline. Thanks to the growing popularity of electronic payments, the number …

  By Steve Mott   Scratch most of the proposed or existing wallets, and you’ll find the same payments infrastructure everyone is trying to move beyond. What’s needed is an alternative that benefits consumers and merchants as much as it does banks, networks, and carriers.       The rising …