• Visa Inc.’s Canadian unit posted an “open letter” in Canadian newspapers Thursday to protest Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s plan to stop accepting Visa cards in its 400 Canadian stores beginning July 18 because of allegedly high acceptance costs. “Wal-Mart has initiated a public flight—something we never wanted—as they are using …

• Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) said it is integrating a machine-learning engine from Featurespace that will allow the processor to generate real-time decisions on individual consumers. TSYS says the speedier fraud-control processing will help prepare its clients for the arrival of real-time payments. • Plastc Inc., which markets a …

Peer-to-peer payments are taking center stage as banks, processors, and tech companies roll out new ways to displace cash. But will providers cash in? The headlines mostly tell of the problem-plagued EMV chip card rollout in the U.S. or wishfully hope that mobile payments will finally catch on with consumers …

• Fidelity National Information Services Inc. and The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC announced they will launch a pilot for real-time payments in the first quarter of next year. The system will focus initially on bill payments and will use FIS technology along with The Clearing House’s real-time payment platform. …

What do industry leaders foresee for 2016? Many feel the number of announcements will level off, but there will be a few big, even game-changing, ones. Drew Luca, a partner at PwC, feels we will see mobile-payments companies undergoing the industry consolidation and interoperability that is necessary to fulfill the …

  ClearXchange, a bank-owned person-to-person payments company that launched a real-time payments service in June, says its merger with Early Warning Services LLC will assuage concerns about security as more consumers and financial institutions use the service. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Early Warning announced Monday it will buy San Francisco-based clearXchange for …

When Dwolla Inc. in June eliminated its 25-cent transaction fee, it said it intended to make money by launching value-added services that would leverage the network technology it had created. On Wednesday, it launched the latest chapter in this plan with a white-label service that lets banks, businesses, and government …

Should transactions be free? Dwolla Inc. thinks so. The processor last month eliminated its 25-cent transaction fee, effective on all transactions types. The fee, which had applied to transaction values exceeding $10, was typically paid by the receiver of the money. Des Moines, Iowa-based Dwolla processes person-to-person payments as well …

Mobile peer-to-peer transfer has led to ubiquitous, real-time payment in a social context. But can anyone make any money in this business? Nobody can say for sure when the first electronic person-to-person payment took place, but payments historians are pretty sure they can pinpoint the first official P2P transfer using …

By John Stewart Dwolla Inc. announced Thursday morning it is eliminating its 25-cent transaction fee, effective immediately, on all transactions types. The fee, which has applied to transaction values exceeding $10, is typically paid by the receiver of the money. Des Moines, Iowa-based Dwolla processes person-to-person payments as well as …