The complexity of federal and state regulation has some operators thinking twice, including Facebook and Microsoft, both of which ditched their currencies. By Linda Punch When federal prosecutors in May shut down digital-currency network Liberty Reserve on money-laundering charges, all eyes turned to other peer-to-peer digital currencies, such as Bitcoin …

Peter Lucas Consumer frustration with checkout threatens to dampen the mobile-payments boom. Technology to the rescue? When it comes to shopping, mobile devices have untethered online consumers from the constraints of desktop and laptop computers. New York-based market-research firm eMarketer Inc. projects that this year alone sales initiated by mobile …

Shelley Plomske Mobile payments and social marketing are creating many new opportunities for small and mid-sized businesses. Here are some key points for merchants as these new technologies and techniques ramp up.This year will be unlike anything ever witnessed in the payments industry. Driven by the global economic crisis, the …

A common solution has been found that will ease EMV migration and permit compliance with the Durbin Amendment, but all networks must support the solution to realize its full benefits, says Terry Dooley. The key to an easier, more affordable, and less complex solution for EMV in the United States …

The slow death of paper checks showed up again in the latest quarterly statistics from NACHA, the regulatory body for the automated clearing house network. The ACH, which links virtually every financial institution in the country, allows banks and merchants to convert checks into electronic formats. But transaction volume on …

Mobile-payments processor Square Inc. on Wednesday moved to fill a gap in its product lineup by introducing Square Market, an e-commerce service for small U.S. merchants. Square Market publishes a merchant’s Web pages at no charge, doesn’t charge for listings, and charges a straight 2.75% of the sale for a …

Why Is First Data Dissing PayPal POS? Discover Financial Services has recruited 50 merchant acquirers to bring acceptance of leading online payment system PayPal to more than 2 million physical merchant locations by year’s end. Still holding out, at least as late as late May, was No. 1 merchant processor …

Gideon Samid • Gideon@BitMint.com How would you counsel a society that uses manual typewriters? Would you explain the clear advantages of an electric typewriter, or would you point them to computer technology?  Similarly, for the huge national effort called EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) migration. Consider EMV in light of “pay-phone” technology. Just …

Linda Punch With law enforcement’s spotlight on Bitcoin and other digital currencies, a startup called BitMint hopes its approach will inject much-needed trust into the business. Developers of digital currencies are struggling to find the right mix of features to win over a mass market. One of the latest efforts …

There’s clearly consumer demand to speed up settlement, and it’s been done overseas. The challenges here, though, are formidable, starting with defining just what ‘real time’ is. By Jim Daly Doctors often tell their harried patients to slow down, but in payments it’s just the opposite. In an effort to …