The merchant-acquiring business continued its consolidation trend on Wednesday with the news that Priority Payment Systems LLC has merged with Cynergy Data LLC. The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, has created an independent sales organization processing some $20 billion annually for 125,000 merchant clients. Comvest Partners, a West Palm …

It’s still very early in the U.S. smart card game, but so far chip-and-PIN authentication dominates among commercial card issuers, according to new research by First Annapolis Consulting Inc. The findings could signal that chip-and-PIN will beat out chip-and-signature authentication as the United States prepares for broader smart card issuance …

In an unusual tactic to thwart credit card fraud, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. nearly a year ago quietly implemented a policy in which its point-of-sale terminals prompt some cardholders to enter their card’s verification number, a code normally used for card-not-present transactions such as mail-order/telephone order (MOTO) and Internet purchases. The …

The mobile-payments variant known as host card emulation captured its biggest financial-institution backer yet with a deal between Russia’s Sberbank and Sequent Software Inc. Sberbank will launch a commercial service “later this year” using HCE software from Mountain View, Calif.-based Sequent, an official with the bank tells Digital Transactions News. …

Target Corp. is making good on its plans to accelerate chip-and-PIN payment card technology in its stores and among its customers with Monday’s announcement that it will move its entire Redcard credit and debit card portfolio to cards that use MasterCard Inc.’s chip-and-PIN technology. Most of Target’s cards, however, will …

Card-not-present merchants contending with the double-digit growth of e-commerce and mobile commerce often face more exposure to fraudulent transactions. Vesta Corp., an Alpharetta, Ga.-based payments-security company, says its new payment gateway vSafe can help reduce that fraud. n The gateway relies on data from more than 1 billion transactions made …

Less than a month after electronic gift card provider Gyft announced it was selling Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gift cards, they no longer are available. According to a report on Coindesk.com, a digital-currency news site, Gyft stopped offering Wal-Mart gift cards on April 13. Gyft provides electronic gift card services for …

A less costly, software-based way to handle mobile transactions using near-field communication (NFC) technology is expected to begin fueling NFC payments later this year following the release of specifications from both MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. n Support from the two major international card networks comes as demand for HCE-based …

The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, which last summer announced its effort to tokenize payment card numbers, is now mulling a related system that would similarly mask sensitive consumer information related to automated clearing house transactions, and may have a proposal ready by year’s end. “It’s something we’ve spent a …

After a string of news from Visa Inc. about partnerships with electronic funds transfer networks to facilitate debit transactions with chip cards, MasterCard Inc. got back in the game Thursday with the announcement that First Data Corp.’s Star network will use MasterCard’s so-called common application identifier (AID). n Visa has …