Payment processing

When Walmart switched on Walmart Pay this week at 600 stores in two states, it marked the beginning of a new era, when merchants finally take the reins in mobile payments — and, by extension, the future of digital commerce.

The Merchant Customer Exchange, a retailer-backed mobile wallet venture of over three years in the works, has postponed its plans for a national rollout of its mobile wallet.

Stadiums, concert halls and other entertainment settings have long been venues in which terminal providers like NCR or Oracle would likely have units in place, offering a vast array of functions tailored to those businesses.

Square, which has been aggressively adding merchant services to enhance its mobile payments product, has added an invoice scheduling feature to add flexibility to merchant payments.

Like any long-term relationship, Walmart and Visa have had their ups and downs. Sometimes these interactions were solely between the two companies; but many times, Walmart and Visa's conflicts gave a voice to the entire retail and payments industries.

While Walmart's lawsuit against Visa this week centers on authorization and routing methods, the Debit Network Alliance LLC — a group of independent debit networks — is also taking issue with EMV routing in addressing how terminal software is handling the choices presented to consumers.

Walmart and Visa have had a long and volatile relationship, and the retailer's latest lawsuit against the global card brand gives voice to a struggle that many other companies are too small to fight.

To expand the reach of its global e-commerce services, Ingenico ePayments is building up a vast network of connections to merchant acquirers, hoping to gain a competitive edge as the demand grows for omnichannel payments.

Merchants that now accept EMV-chip cards at the point of sale are not happy with the user experience, and First Data sees itself in a position to help.

Global EMV consultant and system tester Fime will provide end-to-end certification services for terminals and acceptance systems using the Discover Network and Diners Club International payment applications.

Banks and their merchant clients face a costly problem stemming from how prepared they are to deal with attacks that sidestep the point of sale.

Despite the enormous upside, mobile wallet adoption rates remain relatively low, persistently underperforming expectations.

MagTek CEO Annmarie ‘Mimi’ Hart is eager to witness the potential of futuristic payment technologies, from wearables to ‘edibles’ and ‘injectables.’ But first, she must work with the merchant community to address the shortcomings of today’s approaches to payment security.

McDonald's has been at the fore of many new digital initiatives around the world, and it has played a significant role in demonstrating how MasterCard can flex its international scale to build new services and avoid being disrupted.

With the backdrop of a tough financial second quarter, Apple executives both sang the praises of Apple Pay's uptick in consumer use and admitted the company has to view the mobile payment service as a future money maker rather than a key contributor now.

Vantiv named Stephanie Ferris chief financial officer, promoting her from deputy chief financial officer, a post she has held since September 2015.

The hurdles to broader EMV adoption in the U.S. have many causes, but to the consumer the end result is typically the same: A longer payment process with no immediate gain.

KKR & Co. reported a loss for the first quarter after its biggest investment, in payments processor First Data Corp., lost a fifth of its value, highlighting the heightened exposure a private equity firm takes on when it bets its own money on a company.

U.S. Bancorp said Friday that it has agreed to sell its majority stake in a Brazilian technology division of its Elavon payments processing subsidiary.

First Data Corp., the payments processor that went public last year, halved its losses in the first quarter as revenue increased.