Merchant

Leaf, a provider of tablets for payments, has hired several executives including a director at Heartland Payment Systems, which recently invested in the startup.

The Federal Trade Commission has sued a group of affiliated collection agencies and their owners for using the words "Federal," "American," "U.S.," or "State" in their names and for collection tactics such as threatening to arrest customers.

Lowell Group, a purchaser of non-performing consumer debt portfolios in the United Kingdom, is working on a deal aimed at slashing its cost of borrowing.

Louisiana's efforts to create a central collections office to pursue more than $1 billion in debts owed to the state government could take several years to complete, officials said.

Banks at risk of failure fell for the 11th straight quarter to nearly half the high mark of March 2011, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Payments played a major role in the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Here are some of the biggest announcements that came out during the conference, and a few from just before or afterwards that were no less important to the mobile payments community.

Square has reportedly delayed an initial public offering, which gives the company a chance to build more services that position it for sustainable growth in the future, according to payments consultant Richard Crone.

The Federal Trade Commission is closing a case against debt buyer Security Credit Services and Jacob Law Group that involved violations of both the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and FTC Act.

Isis expects a lot of banks will leverage host card emulation (HCE) to build their own mobile wallets, though the telecom-led mobile payments scheme also hopes the technology will add breadth to its own service.

Cellum, a mobile commerce provider, has integrated MasterCard's MasterPass digital wallet with its own mobile wallet offering, OTPay, making it the first third-party in Europe to integrate MasterPass.