Valve Corp., which operates Steam, a popular gaming site, said it no longer is accepting Bitcoin because of the digital currency’s volatility and acceptance costs, which reached almost $20 in a transaction last week. Bitcoin processor BitPay Inc. said it raised $30 million in additional funding. In 2014, the company …

Payment consulting and testing firm Fime obtained D-Payment Application Specification (D-PAS) accreditation from Discover Financial Services for the Pulse debit network, meaning Fime’s EMV chip card service for merchant acquirers is now available on all of Discover’s networks that include Discover and Diners Club International in addition to Pulse. SalePoint …

Micro-investing site Acorns has integrated its service with PayPal Holdings Inc., allowing select PayPal account holders to access their Acorn accounts through PayPal. The service will be expanded to all U.S. PayPal account holders starting early in 2018. Voice-marketing firm Invoca released a report called “The Rise of Voice” that …

Boosted by the addition of debit transactions Sept. 15, same-day automated clearing house transaction volume hit 10 million in October, up 140% from 4.1 million in August, according to ACH governing body NACHA. Total value of the October payments was $9.14 billion, Herndon, Va.-based NACHA reported last week. The value …

Encryption specialist Bluefin Payment Systems said it will provide encryption services to clients of payments provider Accepta LLC. A report from processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) found 25 real-time payments systems in operation globally, up from 19 last year and more than twice the number in 2013. Another …

The Clearing House, a major player in U.S. payments, is getting deeper into the tokenization business through a new pact with Mastercard Inc. New York City-based The Clearing House and Mastercard announced Thursday that TCH has become a Mastercard-certified third-party Token Service Provider (TSP). As such, TCH will be able …

Wells Fargo & Co. launched cardless cash access at its ATMs using near-field communication technology. Consumers using the bank’s mobile app hold an NFC-equipped smart phone near an NFC-enabled ATM after opening and authenticating the bank app. The ATM then prompts for a PIN entry to complete the transaction. Wells said …

Canadian pension-fund manager Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec and private-equity firm Novacap said they would invest in Quebec-based Pivotal Payments, valuing the merchant processor at about C$525 million ($424 million), Pivotal Payments announced. Processor First Data Corp. introduced its “Disburse-to-Debit” service that pushes funds across debit networks so that businesses can …

Merchants that process with Vantiv Inc. will have a new option to receive their settlements within minutes in the FastAccess Funding program the processor and program partner Visa Inc. announced Thursday. Merchants typically receive their settlement funds via the automated clearing house, which may take one to three days. Instead …

The introduction this month of same-day ACH debits will cause some headaches. But all things considered, same-day processing might well end up slowing the momentum of real-time alternatives, says Sarah Grotta. With the supposition that faster is better when it comes to money, the automated clearing house network is entering …