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PayPal Inc., a pioneer in alternative online payments, is seeking to stake a new claim in the burgeoning and increasingly congested mobile-payments space, and what sets it apart may be an acquisition that occurred three years ago.

Doxo Inc. has taken a significant step in its mission to remove paper from the bill-paying process by securing AT&T Inc. as a biller offering doxoPAY electronic payments to its customers, the e-payments provider startup announced Nov. 3.

ZirMed Inc. has launched a patient-payment developer kit that software and health care provider vendors may add to their products so hospitals can offer patients online-payment options, ZirMed announced Nov. 4.

Merchants and ATMs across Hungary soon will accept China UnionPay cards under an agreement the card organization and Budapest-based OTP Bank Ltd. announced Oct. 25.

LAS VEGAS–The banking industry has lost the battle against debit interchange regulation several times over, but some executives are still fighting the good fight.

A glimpse of what some say represents the future of payments has arrived, but thus far only in certain geographic areas. With the Card Case smartphone application from Square Inc., consumers pay simply by saying their names at the point of sale.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is giving its three top credit card program customers several options to redeem points and buy gifts for the holiday season, a move that will “create buzz” for the products and may help spur consumers to move back to using credit cards more often for holiday shopping, analysts say.

LAS VEGAS–Mobile-wallet providers Google Inc. and Isis continue to position their products as more than just payments vehicles to replace plastic cards.

MasterCard Worldwide has entered into a partnership with Taiwan-based online retailers PayEasy Co. Ltd. and GoHappy Co. Ltd. to offer a cross-border shopping service, the payment card brand announced Nov. 1.

Alfa-Bank has received Russia's first certification for Visa Inc.’s payWave contactless-payment platform for credit and debit cards.

Consumers are complaining less about the way credit card companies treat them following the 2010 implementation of the Credit Card Accountability, Disclosure and Responsibility Act, new survey data from Consumer Reports suggest.

Income growth may be stagnant and consumer confidence weak, but spending has been “surprisingly resilient” and has helped fuel modest revenue increases for First Data Corp., executives told industry analysts Nov. 2 while discussing third-quarter earnings.

MasterCard Worldwide will offer special incentives to certain merchants to offset the effects of new Federal Reserve Board rules requiring debit cards to carry at least two card-network brands in contrast to Visa’s plan to offer broad merchant incentives, Ajay Banga, MasterCard chairman and CEO, told analysts Nov. 2.

Citing higher purchase volumes for credit and debit cards in all regions, MasterCard Worldwide earned net income of $717 million for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, up 38.4% from $518 million a year earlier, the company said Nov. 2.

Can "Stop.Think.Connect" become the new "Stop, Drop and Roll"?

Bellco Credit Union launched a photo contest as part of a social media initiative to select potential new Visa card designs.

Using an effective online banking data-security method customers view as nonintrusive represents the best option for financial institutions as fraud-prevention capabilities increasingly become key factors in consumer choice, a fraud expert suggests in a recent study report.

Debt buyer Encore Capital Group Inc. last week reported increases in third quarter net income, revenue and cash collections and revealed details about a new state investigation into its collection practices.

Portfolio Recovery Associates, a Norfolk, Va.-based debt buyer, reported across-the-board gains in third quarter cash collections, earnings and revenues.

China UnionPay and Japan Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co. have launched Japan's first China UnionPay platinum credit card, the companies announced Oct. 26.