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Discover Financial Services has agreed to refund hundreds of millions of dollars to settle a regulatory probe of its credit card marketing practices.

Groupon's new payments system is a small step toward a dramatic change in merchant acquiring, one that leaves ownership of consumer data up for grabs.

These days it seems like everyone is a payments company, whether their primary business is selling coffee or coupons. Wherever they come from, they're challenging the very structure of this industry.

The payments industry has taken it upon itself to police any entity that accepts credit or debit cards — even when that entity is the police.

Several merchant groups are asking members of Congress to hear their opposition to the swipe-fee settlement announced in July.

It's hard for credit card issuers to expand lending when customers keep a lid on their bills the way they are these days.

Groupon is the latest of many companies to provide merchants with a card reader that clips to smartphones. But the daily-deals company is not simply selling a me-too device — it is planting the seeds of a bigger payments strategy.

Although hospitality-focused mobile payment application developer Tabbedout's technology has some resemblance to Square's mobile wallet, the vendor says it designed its system to be more compatible with established payment systems.

American Express said it has hired Erich Ringewald, the former chief technology officer of Boku, to be its vice president of software product management.

Apple may be waiting to bring mobile payments to the masses, but MasterCard is forging ahead. The card network announced this week a software toolkit to help turn any Near Field Communication enabled Android or Blackberry smartphone into a mobile wallet.

A group of state attorneys general is investigating how major banks process and sell delinquent credit card accounts.

In the world of plastic cards, if a consumer loses one card, every card linked to that account must be canceled. That isn't the case with mobile wallets.

Alliance Data says it will provide private-label credit card services to the retailer Talbots. It has also acquired the $145 million in receivables associated with Talbots' private-label credit card file.

Square announced today that it has closed the Series D financing round that included Starbucks, among other investors.

Issuers are finding more and more sophisticated ways to entice consumers to swipe their cards over those of their rival banks.

Google says use of its mobile wallet app has more than doubled since it modified Google Wallet to more easily allow consumers to link their credit and debit cards.

Apple has — yet again — left payments out when it designed its newest iPhone, despite numerous indications that it explored using Near Field Communication technology to create a mobile wallet. Apple had many good reasons to choose the course it did.

The medical marijuana market once represented a new opportunity for merchant processors, but it dried up almost overnight when the major U.S. credit card networks more or less banned them from processing such sales — even in states where it is legal.

Isis, the mobile-payment venture backed by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, won't debut by the end of September as planned, extending delays for a service once expected to start by the end of June.

Barclaycard US says it will work with Google to support the Google Wallet mobile payment system.