By Jim Daly@DTPayment News First Data Corp. said attrition in its small and mid-size North American merchant portfolio eased off in the third quarter, but chief executive Frank Bisignano cautioned that getting attrition down to acceptable levels will take more time. “Q3 saw a meaningful reduction in the annualized attrition …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Card controls, a way to empower consumers to control when and where their credit and debit cards are used, are evolving. Viewed as one way to contend with the rampant data breaches fueling payment fraud, card controls are moving beyond the simple on-off switching capability of the …

• Mobile-commerce technology provider Sionic Mobile launched a mobile-payment and loyalty app called Style Rewards for hair salons. The app was introduced in collaboration with Style Media22, an interactive digital-media agency for salon professionals. • Mobile point-of-sale technology provider CardFlight agreed to offer its SwipeSimple EMV solution to merchant clients of …

• RYDE Technologies Inc. launched an overhauled version of its ride-hailing app RYDE, first launched last year to compete with Uber and Lyft. As with other such apps, RYDE processes payments in the background against a stored card, summons taxicabs and black cars rather than private vehicles. • The Bancorp Inc., …

• Early Warning Services LLC, a fraud-management company, announced an alliance with NuData Security that enables Early Warning to use behavioral analytics and risk assessment as part of its authentication platform. • Money-transfer revenue for MoneyGram International totaled $339.6 million for the third quarter, up 5% on a constant-currency basis …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews As payments firms seek to commercialize emerging online marketplaces, they’re starting to leverage automated routines that promise to overturn traditional transaction methods and, just possibly, deliver on the long-sought goal of so-called frictionless payments. This week, both MasterCard Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. announced new initiatives …

• Chip card standards body EMVCo issued 3-D Secure 2.0, its update of the 3-D Secure technology for protecting e-commerce transactions. The new specification supports app-based purchases on mobile and other devices and will streamline the checkout process in order reduce transaction abandonment, EMVCo says. • MasterCard Inc. announced plans to …

Just three months after forging a landmark agreement with Visa Inc., and not quite two months after doing a similar deal with MasterCard Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc.’s top brass on Thursday indicated the agreements are already paying dividends for the San Jose, Calif.-based digital-payments company. “Our customers are now able …

• Bank of America Corp. said its debit card purchase volumes totaled $71 billion in the third quarter, up 2.5% from $69.3 billion a year earlier. U.S. credit card purchase volume increased 2% to $57.6 billion. BofA said it now has 21.3 million mobile-banking users, a 15.8% increase from 18.4 …

• The rash of hotel breaches continues. Noble House Hotels & Resorts said it confirmed that a payment card system used at its Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa and Hotel Terra may have been breached between Sept. 5 and Sept. 6. The company said there are no indications the breach …