Merchant

It looks like the U.S. market will finally join a large number of other countries and offer real-time payments—but can ubiquity be achieved?

After several years of a sharp decline in B-to-B check payments, in the last year or so the trend has begun to level off, the latest AFP data suggests.

Data breaches aren’t going away. What’s also frustrating for those tasked with protecting data is that poor consumer habits regarding online security aren’t going away, either. Weak passwords shared across all online accounts continue, despite ever-growing threats.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday fined a large auto title lender $9 million for failing to disclose the terms and costs of its title loans in three states, and for illegally exposing consumers' information to their employers.

The $2.2 billion-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing that it redeemed $12.2 million, the remaining half of its SBLF shares, on Sept. 22 at a liquidation value of $1,000 each for $12.4 million.

For merchants still on the fence about whether to buy Square Inc.’s $49 contactless card reader, there’s a new enticement to consider: Square has sped up the time it takes to accept EMV cards by 1.5 seconds.

In 2010, lawmakers passed bipartisan reforms to bring transparency and competition to a debit card swipe fee market that had previously been void of both. Now, members of Congress want to undo that progress.

Randolph Bancorp raised $57 million in a mutual-to-stock conversion and is using the proceeds to fund acquisitions — it closed its first-ever deal in July — and dramatically improve its digital capabilities.

Yahoo says no bank account or card data has been compromised in its massive data breach. Yet hackers could use their ill-gotten personal information about customers to mess with bank accounts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit this week against a Van Nuys, Calif., credit repair company for deceptively marketing its services and charging consumers illegal fees.