Merchant

Under Jill Castilla, the once-sleepy Citizens has been transformed into a thoroughly modern institution that has become a model for other small banks trying to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive financial services marketplace. For that reason and more, she is one of American Banker's three community bankers of the year.

Wirecard Group and Alipay are collaborating to provide European retailers with barcode technology enabling Chinese tourists to make point of sale payments using the Alipay mobile wallet app.

American Express has joined LendingTree’s credit card marketplace.

Dealing with late and missed payments from creditors is a chronic complaint of small businesses. A U.K.-based startup aims to attack the problem with YayPay, an automated invoicing platform with a bill-collections feature that launched this week in the U.S.

Foreclosure filings - default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions - were reported on 104,111 U.S. properties in November, a nearly 10% drop from the previous month and down more than 7% from a year ago.

Versatile, high-tech digital gift card sales are going strong for this year’s holiday season, but in the latest sign that plastic cards many never die, eBay has partnered with gift card giant InComm to sell traditional gift cards online that will take up to 10 days to arrive by mail.

TransUnion has acquired Trustev, an e-commerce ID and fraud protection startup based in Ireland, in a $44 million deal - including $21 million initially and $23 million more contingent on meeting certain targets.

Dealing with late and missed payments from creditors is a chronic complaint of small businesses, who are often stretched too thin to chase down money owed to them. But a U.K.-based startup aims to attack that problem with YayPay, an automated invoicing platform with a bill-collections feature that launched this week in the U.S.

Exciting growth opportunities exist for small and medium businesses taking advantage of the ever-increasing holiday shopping season. However, amidst this positive backdrop, lurks the negative threat posed by hackers and cyber criminals that prey on holiday shoppers and businesses.

U.S. transactions processor Global Payments Inc. is in talks to buy smaller rival Heartland Payment Systems Inc., according to people with knowledge of the matter.