Payment processing

For years, the financial services industry has relied on tactics such as education campaigns, sales pitches and financial penalties to get merchants to upgrade their technology. Ironically, the bad security that led to Target's 2013 data breach may have been the strongest way to deliver this message.

It may seem odd for a vendor of payment acceptance hardware to discredit EMV security, which is commonly seen as a catalyst for hardware sales, but that's exactly what MagTek is doing.

Already facing technology-driven threats to their relevancy, independent sales organizations (ISOs) face another dilemma: should ISOs spread their wings with numerous acquirers and processors, or stick with one that provides the best deal for servicing merchant clients?

Subscription billing is now mainstream. Savvy consumers are happily paying small monthly subscription fees for their favorite products rather than forking over a big up-front payment.

As Square and PayPal push business financing, American Express is adding extra funding options to give businesses a lifeline when spending needs a spike.

Verifone plans to acquire payment technology and switching solutions provider AJB Software, a move that would allow the point of sale hardware maker to offer more services to its acquiring partners as merchants deploy EMV security and mobile wallet acceptance.

Seven years after placing its first smart terminal in Africa as part of a financial inclusion program, French terminal maker Ingenico says the program has progressed to where it now has 50,000 terminals that aid financial services in the region.

Through a partnership with Intel, terminal maker Ingenico Group has developed a contactless payment technology that is being used in a Panasonic tablet.

Avidia Bank has been operating a new integrated platform for a few weeks that brings together third-party processor compliance, risk management, ACH and card payment acceptance, and remote deposit capture on one platform.

To facilitate its push into the U.S. market, Splitit (formerly PayItSimple) recently added its cloud-based interest-free installment payment technology as a free plugin for e-commerce merchants using the WooCommerce platform.

In the war on cash, Canada doesn't hold a candle to Sweden, where bills and coins are used for less than 5% of retail transactions, or Denmark, which plans to eradicate cash by 2030. But recent research suggests Canada is quickly closing the gap as its rate of contactless payments is soaring.

It's a precarious time for security at gas stations, many of which are taking advantage of the two-year grace period they received for EMV card acceptance when the rest of the bank and retail world faced a 2015 deadline.

Walmart has entered the mobile payments industry, announcing in December that it was introducing Walmart Pay, an upgrade to Walmart’s existing app that will allow in-store shoppers to pay with their smartphones at checkout.

Payment security services provider EchoSat has purchased SmartLink, a division of Heartland Payment Systems.

Payments technology provider Elavon says it is among the first payment processing companies to offer Apple Pay to Canadian businesses.

From fairly humble beginnings three years ago with the low-fee Bluebird prepaid Amex card and the Serve platform, Walmart has gotten more and more aggressive — and welcoming — with payments innovation.

It's hard to come by hard data on consumers actually using mobile wallets to pay in stores, but these consumers do exist.

New technologies are allowing us to reimagine the entire customer payment experience.

One in every three card-present transactions globally from July 2014 to June 2015 involved an EMV-chip card, according to EMVCo.

Target Corp. is tight-lipped on the details of its proprietary mobile wallet, but reports of the retailer's plan for a software-based wallet app early next year are adding to the concern that the mobile wallet market is becoming oversaturated with options too early in its lifecycle.