Merchant

Berkshire Hills Bancorp is buying a bank with a national mortgage platform. The company hopes the business will provide a much-needed lift in fee income.

Merchants have long sought to change how the card networks charge fees, and are getting a new chance after more than a decade of court squabbles.

Initial coin offerings are the latest fad for many emerging cryptocurrency companies and projects. From the recently completed Lisk, Waves and Mycelium coin offerings to the historic crowd sale by the DAO – which was subsequently hacked for about $60 million – to Bitland, Project Decorum, Elastic Project and a good number more sales, the trend is clear.

Grocery chain Aldi, which manages overhead by requiring consumers to bag their own groceries, is a late adopter--but it is starting to add new payment types.

Debt collection complaints fell in May, and the average of complaints from March through May also dropped, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s latest monthly complaint report.

The approach of many payment and financial services companies to security is still stuck in the 20th century. But luckily, firms of all sizes can choose to travel in time to 2016.

First Data has secured a partnership with Silicon Valley Bank, giving the payments technology provider and processor a front seat to take notes on all of the technology development taking place among the bank's clients.

People and businesses expect access to their money and payments in real-time, and electronic funds transfers such as Fedwire and Swift transfers offer a convenient way to send payments to vendors, clients and partners rapidly.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a class-action lawsuit against Encore Capital Group Inc. to proceed, declining to hear the debt-buying giant's claim that such companies should be protected from state laws barring money-lending at unreasonably high interest rates.

Since consumers find EMV cards frustrating and difficult to use, EMV may do more to promote NFC as the preferred payment method among consumers and business owners.