Payment processing

Lots of countries are making big changes to their payment ecosystems, with lots of public fallout. By contrast, Canada's efforts appear much more subdued.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to revive a $5.7 billion settlement of retailer claims that Visa and Mastercard improperly fixed credit card swipe fees, in a rebuff that could mean years of additional litigation.

As trends in payments technology take hold or taper off, it's safe to say that one is firmly entrenched: The shift to mobile and integrated point of sale devices.

Banks are asking Hong Kong property agents to stop accepting China-issued UnionPay cards, as mainland authorities escalate their crackdown on capital flows out of the country.

Malicious hackers tend to swarm around industries they perceive as vulnerable, and terminal makers are the latest to find themselves in the crosshairs.

Ingenico ePayments, the online and mobile commerce division of France's Ingenico, has signed an agreement with Air China to accept Discover Card payments in North America, a key market for the Beijing-based airline, with plans to expand to other regions later this year.

When most of the payments industry was working to find a way to accommodate the Durbin amendment's routing rules for EMV debit cards, First Data acquisition target Acculynk had its attention focused elsewhere.

ID attacks have expanded quickly in the past year, partly due to the same kind of automation that companies use to manage a high volume of transactions.

After its work with GPShopper produced favorable results the past two years, Synchrony Financial aims to dig deeper into mobile commerce by acquiring its partner.

Cleveland-based Select Restaurants Inc., a national chain of upscale restaurants and bars, has experienced a breach exposing customers’ payment card data through point of sale technology, according to data security expert Brian Krebs.

The introduction of EMV is supposed to help reduce instances of fraud. But when a merchant has trouble operating its terminal, unscrupulous customers can take advantage.

Revel Systems is about to expand a program it’s created at several U.S. airports enabling shops and restaurants to seamlessly integrate business travelers’ checkouts with a mobile app from Expensify, a top corporate travel expense-reporting software provider.

The industry has made great strides in faster payments over the past year. Even more cooperation among stakeholders will be needed in the year ahead.

First Data is bulking up its e-commerce capabilities with an agreement to buy Acculynk.

The mobile point of sale vendor ShopKeep has purchased ChowBot, an online order-and-pay software tool for restaurants, with plans to broadly integrate the new feature into its services for small businesses.

A lot of time can pass between a breach and when a company discovers the incident, creating an opportunity to damage payment systems.

ICBA Bancard is partnering with the payments provider linked2pay to more easily deploy Automated Clearing House and other transaction types through a cloud-based platform.

Many banks and money transmitters have built successful billion-dollar businesses around P-to-P payments without social sharing and letting users send emojis.

The industry has made great strides in faster payments over the past year. Even more cooperation among stakeholders will be needed in the year ahead.

The terminal and ATM maker, which is making a number of changes to its business, expecs the plant will be phased out by the end of the third quarter.