Economy

Some governments are getting into the digital currency game, offering their own alternatives to cash with traits that differ in meaningful ways from cross-border cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

PayPal's history suggests that the problem of Bitcoin fraud will only get worse as the electronic currency gains momentum.

No one ever wishes for a data breach. But payments companies see a silver lining in the widespread publicity devoted to the holiday breaches at Target and Nieman Marcus.

Any well-paid sales agent can tell you that bargaining for a compensation agreement seems a lot like playing the dating game: You need to find a good match and be willing to compromise.

After every major Samsung product unveiling this week, PayPal was quick to say: we have an app for that.

Lisa Shipley’s helping to transform the acquiring industry into an international business in her job at TNS, and giving giving younger women a boost in the industry as W.net president.

There is a sudden surge of attention around Host Card Emulation, a technology that enables Near Field Communication contactless payments without requiring access to the phone's secure element (a chip that carriers control). Several mobile wallets are either in testing or fully live with the technology.

Until recently, mobile wallets could count on getting at least some boost from exclusivity. If you were on Sprint, you could use Google Wallet but not Isis. If you were on AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile, you could use Isis but not Google Wallet. If you had an iPhone, you could use neither, but you had your pick of software-based mobile wallets such as LevelUp and the Starbucks card.

Silicon Valley Bank and MasterCard Inc. launched the Commerce.Innovated. accelerator to find and nurture innovators in payments technology.

TSYS has increased its stake in its Central Payment joint venture from 60% to 75%, and Cpay's founders, twin brothers Matt and Zach Hyman, are staying on.

TSYS has increased its stake in its Central Payment joint venture from 60% to 75%. Cpay founders Matt and Zach Hyman, twin brothers who own the remaining portion of the venture, have agreed to stay on as co-managing directors for the next three years.

Capital One has joined clearXchange, providing a flood of new potential end users to the bank-led person-to-person payments initiative.

At first, Pedro Alarcon felt reluctant to help fund his restaurant by signing up for a merchant cash advance. Seven years later, he's had 16 advances totaling more than $2 million.

Some ISOs don’t charge merchants a fee for helping them comply with PCI, others charge for failing to comply and some charge both.

The Merchant Customer Exchange's mobile wallet is still taking form. The retailer-driven initiative hasn't even given its product a name in the year and a half it's been in development, but a steady stream of news about its technology and partnerships show what the fully assembled product might look like.

At first, Pedro Alarcon felt reluctant to help fund his restaurant by signing up for a merchant cash advance from a company that wasn't a bank. But he'd had so much difficulty getting a conventional loan that the pitch from a company called AdvanceMe sounded too good to be true.