A bill designed to allow merchants to have a choice of networks for routing credit card transactions failed to pass last year, but now international tensions could affect the proposed law’s prospects in the new Congress. The bill, called the Credit Card Competition Act, would mandate that merchants have a …

A company called AmazeWallet over the weekend said it will soon launch a so-called super app that will let users run blockchain technology on a mobile phone. The app will run such functions as mining tokens, exchanging cryptocurrency, and sending encrypted messages, the London-based company noted. AmazeWallet said it has …

Contactless payments have taken off in the United States and other markets in recent years, but now a piece of malware has emerged that can block wave-and-pay or tap-to-pay transactions and force users to insert their cards in a terminal instead, according to a new report by the Moscow-based global …

P97 Networks, a provider of cloud-based mobile-commerce technology to convenience stores, gas stations, and the automotive industry, is teaming with Visa Inc. to deploy Visa’s token technology as a way to reduce friction with in-car payments, as well as create new customer experiences for mobile-wallet users. P97 will use Visa’s …

History has shown the two global card networks will never introduce real competition on their own. Time for regulators to intervene. The Fed and the FTC have made a start. The recent clarification by the Federal Reserve confirming that a more than 10-year-old law applies to online debit cards—coupled with …

E-commerce transactions for the 2022 holiday-shopping season bested predictions for growth, despite signs of a weakening economy, according to research from ACI Worldwide Inc. From October through December, online transactions increased 21% from the same period in 2021, besting pre-holiday shopping- growth estimates by six percentage points, says ACI. In …

POSaBIT Systems Corp., a point-of-sale system maker for the cannabis industry, said it will acquire MJ Platform, Leaf Data Systems, and Ample Organics from Akerna Corp. for $4 million in an all-cash transaction. The deal will almost double the number of locations serviced by POSaBIT and expands its operations in Canada. …

Consumer adoption of mobile wallets may be growing, but a lot of consumers still prefer to pay using a physical card, a report from J.D. Power finds. The report, which surveyed 3,588 retail-bank customers nationwide between the first quarter of 2021 and third quarter of 2022, found that 49% of …

Bluefin Payment Systems LLC is leveraging Visa Inc.’s technology to provide network tokenization through its ShieldConex vaultless-tokenization service. Bluefin will integrate directly with Visa to provide network tokens across card brands. In addition, Bluefin’s payment gateway, PayConex, will have the ability to process network tokens. ShieldConex protects payment and ACH …

For several years, MagicCube Inc. has worked to prove that merchants can safely and speedily accept card payments with no hardware other than an off-the-shelf mobile device. Now the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has added a new wrinkle to its strategy: agreements with device vendors that make MagicCube’s iAccept the …