Payment processing

Fraud and data security trends can change by the minute, often making it difficult to pinpoint a specific development as a key event during the course of a year. Not so in 2012.

Digital currency, especially Bitcoin, picked up in popularity this year as the concept began garnering positive attention from payment players — but a series of negative incidents kept the skepticism alive as well.

Total System Services has completed its purchase of ProPay.

The payments industry is no stranger to fraud, but there are some key events that stand out over the course of 2012 — and threaten to spill into 2013.

D'mai Urban Spa in Brooklyn, N.Y. loves rainy days because it sees more customers when the weather is dreary. The Park Slope shop gleaned the information from Swipely's technology, which collects data on every customer that swipes a card in the spa.

McDonald's is adding more tap-and-go acceptance at its payment terminals worldwide.

Google’s mobile wallet appears to be staggering to the finish line of 2012. After all, it was a year that started with a reported security breach and is ending with speculation that the search-engine giant will add a plastic card to the otherwise entirely digital wallet.

It's been a rocky year for digital currencies. Facebook began phasing out its Facebook Credits while Bitcoin continues to suffer a bad reputation. However, there are some promising developments on the horizon, with experienced payments providers joining in the digital currency game.

The Google Wallet we see today is a much different product from what we had a year ago. Here are the major changes that took place this year, and the challenges Google faced — and still faces today.

JPMorgan Chase's recent deal to buy the merchant-offer provider Bloomspot Inc. will expand the ways in which the largest U.S. bank by assets presents offers to customers.

For a company that has manufactured point-of-sale terminals in the UK since 1989, Thyron Systems Ltd. admits it has done so in a fairly quiet manner.

At a pop-up market in New York's Union Square Park this week, locals and tourists squeeze past each other as they make their way through rows of candy cane-striped tents, perusing merchants' products as hurried commuters coming and going from a nearby subway entrance dart through the crowd.

MasterCard Inc., already facing at least 12 U.K. lawsuits after European Union regulators outlawed cross-border card fees, was sued by Deutsche Bahn AG and J Sainsbury Plc.

Small businesses can initiate and manage international payments online with the help of a product from Sage Group PLC called Sage International Payments.

The popularity of the Square payment-card reader has sparked a new market for accessories — smaller versions of the cases and sleeves people commonly buy for the iPhones which Square readers attach to.

Voltage Security, an encryption vendor, is touting Voltage Secure Stateless Tokenization technology, which the company says provides merchants and payment processors with a new approach to protecting card data.

American Express continues its move into a payments arena not often associated with the affluent customers served through the New York-based card network. It now accepts Amex card payments at gas stations commonly located in parking lots near Walmart stores.

The Electronic Transactions Association is remaining true to its original constituents in the acquiring business, even as it opens the doors to other types of companies, according to the trade group’s CEO.

Fulton Financial has agreed to sell a payments business to a Canadian payments processor and foreign exchange services provider.

Irish-based Monex Financial Systems Ltd. is looking for American independent sales organizations interested in profiting from card transactions made here by visitors from abroad.