The prognostications for 2019 are starting to roll in, and if at least one comes true, we’ll see business-to-business transactions driving the growth of faster-payment systems. And smart phones might actually gain some discernible traction at the point of sale. The predictions come from the big accounting and consulting firm …

First Data Corp. released its Holiday Insights dashboard, which shows real-time U.S. holiday spending trends, such as total spend percentage increase, today’s most active categories with average ticket and total transactions, and regional payment volume. To date, it indicates retail spending from Thanksgiving through Black Friday increased 6.4% year-over-year. Cardfree Inc., …

E-commerce platform 3dcart announced an integration with TradeGecko, a cloud-based inventory-management platform for business-to-business companies. The integration means online retailers can synchronize their 3dcart store with their TradeGecko account, 3dcart said. Payments provider PaySimple announced its services are now available to users of MarketSharp, marketing and management software program for …

In an online question-and-answer session with sellers, eBay Inc. said its new Managed Payments platform will add PayPal as a payment option by next summer. The new platform relies on payments provider Adyen as a gateway to a variety of payments options. E-commerce processor Shopify Inc. reported an operating loss …

Processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) said its Merchant Solutions unit processed 1.53 billion point-of-sale transactions in the third quarter, a 22% increase from 1.26 billion a year earlier. Sales volume rose 30% to $40.9 billion. The Consumer Solutions segment, which includes the Netspend prepaid card operation, posted gross dollar …

Electronic Merchant Systems announced the acquisition of Total Touch POS, a POS system developer for the hospitality industry. Terms were not disclosed. Bank of America Merchant Services, along with First Data Corp., announced it integrated BlueSnap Inc.’s All-in-one Payment Platform into its system. BAMS is the first integration since First …

Among debit card issuers Apple Pay made up 77% of mobile-wallet transactions, Auriemma Consulting Group said in an analysis of mobile wallets. Samsung Pay and Google made up 17% and 6% of transactions, respectively. Rich Consulting and Double Diamond Group launched a suite of services to aid acquirers, independent sales …

Through the years, the network game hasn’t changed. Payment systems need volume, and that means interoperability with other networks. The key is to be smart about it. The payments world is a patchwork of overlapping and interdependent networks. For success, networks need a path or paths to critical mass. For …

Processor First Data Corp. said it shipped its 1 millionth Clover point-of-sale sale device aimed mainly at small and mid-sized merchants; the device went to Friesen-Apotheken, a pharmacy chain based in Bad Malente, Germany. Payments platform BlueSnap has begun local processing for business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies in Australia. Buildium, a …

Rambus Inc. announced its token gateway for e-commerce is one of the first such services to be certified by the Visa Ready program. The gateway streamlines links to the Visa Token Service to tokenize payment credentials for merchants, payment service providers, and merchants. Mobile-payments specialist Glance Technologies Inc. said its …