Payment should be efficient, secure, and convenient. Alas, these three objectives pull in different directions. Efficiency and convenience tend to undermine security; convenience pulls towards versatility, which in turn harms efficiency. A balance is called for, and the most daring ideas call for a dynamic rather than a static balance. …

Call it Newtonian market dynamics. Sir Isaac Newton propounded the physical law that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now, in the suddenly vibrant market for person-to-person payments, we’re seeing an analogous reaction unfold. As our cover story on page 22 explains, financial institutions have made …

Three companies on Thursday released technology aimed at streamlining virtual cards, digital versions of familiar plastic credit cards that banks can issue to consumers and businesses. Switch Inc. unveiled a version of its Cardsavr card-on-file technology that issuers can integrate now. The new release automates the entry and updating chore …

Ever since Apple Pay launched in the fall of 2014, observers have questioned why the mobile-payment service hasn’t caught on with consumers. One possibility is that the service’s contactless capability remains foreign to most consumers. That could change next month, when Apple Inc. is expected to widen the range of …

Sarah Adams, VP Product, Card Present at Paysafe In an article posted earlier this week, my colleague Todd Linden, CEO of Payment Processing North America, looked at how the US payments landscape is changing. He also explored how Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) were evolving in …

A deep dive into the more than 2,000 pages of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s regulations covering the prepaid market shows that the CFPB is trying to extend uniform consumer protections to as many payment types as possible. That includes unauthorized or disputed transactions for all financial-access devices regardless of …

Customer demand has prompted CheapAir.com to accept three more cryptocurrencies in addition to Bitcoin, which the travel-booking site began accepting in 2013. The new ones are Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Dash. These three currencies promise faster transaction times and lower fees than Bitcoin and are the most-requested cryptocurrencies among those customers …

The same force that decades ago hit the streets and made credit and debit card acceptance nearly universal is revving up in a nascent effort to do the same for cryptocurrency. Aliant Payment Systems, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based independent sales organization that has been marketing Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin acceptance …

What do you get when you add 4 and 11? In the case of Worldpay Inc., it’s 1. The merged version of the former Vantiv Inc. and Worldpay plc moved to the number-one position in The Strawhecker Group’s annual directory of U.S. merchant acquirers. Released Monday, the directory ranks industry …

In its biggest acquisition yet, PayPal Holdings Inc. is buying Stockholm-based payments firm iZettle AB for $2.2 billion. The San Jose, Calif.-based online payments provider late Thursday confirmed an afternoon of rumors about the pending deal. Jacob de Geer, iZettle’s chief executive and co-founder, will stay on after the acquisition’s …