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With more patients paying part or all of their health care expenses directly, health care providers find themselves thrust into the world of consumer payments and collections, where providers face different costs, risks and expectations than they did working primarily with insurance companies.

Beacons—those little Bluetooth mechanisms stores use to beam ads to shoppers' phones—may someday play a critical role in payments. But the technology is still years away from being a practical alternative to cards and NFC-based mobile wallets.

Square Inc. says it has received more funding for its Square Capital program, which grants loans to Square merchants based on their transaction history.

Global Payments will launch the OptBlue program in Canada in early summer, the first acquirer/processor to use the American Express program to adjust Amex card pricing for Canadian merchants.

As more U.S. banks issue EMV-chip credit and debit cards, consumer education remains a challenge, particularly if consumers overlook the paper inserts that come with their new cards.

Latin America is becoming a must-have market for mobile payments, replete with fast growing m-commerce adoption and card network investment.

Paytm, a major mobile wallet in India with backing from China's Alibaba, is gaining acceptance through restaurants like Domino's and setting the foundation for a larger Alibaba presence in the country.

NCR Corp. has updated its transaction processing solution, Authentic, with features such as a browser-based point of sale and card management interface.

Few businesses accept cards for B2B transactions, dreading an interchange charge of 2% to 5% on sales that total thousands of dollars. But there are instances where the benefits of using cards outweigh the cost.

Western Union Co. said it’s not in talks to acquire smaller rival MoneyGram International Inc.

Western Union Co. is in early-stage talks to acquire smaller rival MoneyGram International Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, as both companies contend with stiff competition from upstart money-transfer companies.

Kwik Chek Food Stores' new technology for updating gas prices at the pump also pushes those price changes to motorists using its mobile payment app, a feature that gets customers engaged with the retailer long before they pull up to the pump.

Home Depot Inc. plans to enable Apple Inc.'s mobile-payment platform at its more than 2,000 stores, making it the largest retailer to accept Apple Pay.

Visa is providing merchants with an online information and resource center to prepare for their transition to using chip-enabled credit and debit cards.

The latest innovations that enable and secure mobile payments are adding so much complexity to the deployment process that they may exceed the expertise of the companies putting them in place.

MasterCard has launched the MasterCard Business Network 2.0, the latest version of its professional site for small businesses.

American Express has created a new cobrand credit card for consumers who shop through its Plenti loyalty program.

The Costco cobrand card was a huge win for Visa, but nevertheless the card network's chief executive, Charlie Scharf, found himself defending the terms of the partnership.

Corporate payment cards usually have sophisticated restrictions or controls designed to make unauthorized use difficult, if not impossible.

Patricia Goldstein, the commercial real estate finance pioneer, veteran workout banker and mentor of many of today's top female executives, died Thursday in Highland Beach, Fla. She was 69.