Retailers

In an effort to shield merchants looking to expand into new markets, PayPal will launch an expanded seller protection policy for the Asia Pacific region on Oct. 11.

Citibank has agreed to pay $55,000 to settle a complaint by the Connecticut attorney general that the bank was aware of a security flaw in its online banking service that resulted in hackers obtaining payment card data and stealing about $2.7 million.

Doomsayers conveniently forget that the business case for introducing debit cards was one of cost avoidance for the banks, not revenue.

U.S. merchants are in for a rude awakening if they do not prepare for the spike in e-commerce fraud that will likely follow the shift to EMV-chip cards at the point of sale.

It’s easier to sell a person something he wants than to scare him into buying protection from something he wants to avoid. That’s particularly applicable when it comes to selling payments security.

Any new payments technology is a gamble, and many major retailers refuse to take a risk on untested technology. But small merchants are usually more willing to experiment, and a few have bravely given new payments products their first big chance.

The terminal swapouts that accompany the EMV chip-card migration in the U.S. should help VeriFone recover from its performance slump, according to Northcoast Research.

The St. Louis-based grocery chain Schnucks Markets Inc. continues to face legal woes, four months after disclosing that up to 2.4 million credit and debit card numbers were exposed in a data breach initiated last December.

MasterCard, C-SAM and DNP are preparing to launch a white label mobile wallet service in Japan.

E-Commerce services provider Digital River is launching a mobile payment acceptance product called Beanstream Mobile.

Online and mobile payments processor WePay's has seen the number of developers using its application programming interface (API) grow by 284% in the past year.

In a crowded field of Square-like vendors, the Berlin-based SumUp hopes to stand out by virtue of its executive experience, its strong partnerships and funding, and a more comprehensive role in developing its own hardware as well as its software and services.

The concept of using the payments stream to promote donations is compelling because it provides an easy way to link everyday consumer payments with charitable giving.

Twitter's decision to hire a head of commerce signals that the company plans to play a significant role alongside the many companies that have sought to transform the social media site into a platform for payments.

PayPal has made its portable chip-and-PIN card reader, called PayPal Here, available to all merchants in the U.K.

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. will pursue a multibillion-dollar antitrust settlement with U.S. merchants over credit card fees even though opposition to the deal reached a level that would have allowed the card firms to walk away, according to the head of MasterCard.

As the Federal Trade Commission continues what it describes as an "ongoing crackdown on payment processors" allegedly engaged in fraudulent or deceptive practices, the merchant acquiring industry is ratcheting up efforts to respond to the ongoing enforcement actions and proactively address future oversight.

The demise of PerkStreet, a startup that offered generous cash back on debit card purchases, illustrates how the business is changing. Interchange-funded rewards are out; merchant-funded perks are in.

Facebook’s new mobile checkout initiative brings heft to the power of social data in areas such as advertising and payments risk, and aims to improve the user experience on mobile apps.

A new Braintree service is designed to help market-style businesses streamline the process of splitting incoming consumer payments between their online stores and selling partners.