BlueSnap has developed software designed to help online merchants cut down on checkout abandonment by allowing them to host numerous checkout pages designed for different markets.

Square will now accept Discover and Diners Club credit card payments in Canada, joining American Express, Visa, MasterCard and JCB credit cards.

There is a sudden surge of attention around Host Card Emulation, a technology that enables Near Field Communication contactless payments without requiring access to the phone's secure element (a chip that carriers control). Several mobile wallets are either in testing or fully live with the technology.

New features from the merchant services provider BitPay aim to simplify the process of making Bitcoin payments to merchants.

Bitcoin holders are offering the virtual money for $110 on the online exchange Mt.Gox, down from $829 two weeks ago, following its decision to halt withdrawals earlier this month.

Until recently, mobile wallets could count on getting at least some boost from exclusivity. If you were on Sprint, you could use Google Wallet but not Isis. If you were on AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile, you could use Isis but not Google Wallet. If you had an iPhone, you could use neither, but you had your pick of software-based mobile wallets such as LevelUp and the Starbucks card.

The best way for merchants to combat electronic payments fraud is hand off the responsibility entirely, according to new fraud prevention company Forter.

According to new fraud prevention company Forter, the best way for merchants to combat electronic payments fraud is hand off the responsibility entirely.

Silicon Valley Bank and MasterCard Inc. launched the Commerce.Innovated. accelerator to find and nurture innovators in payments technology.

French terminal maker Ingenico SA and electronics giant Samsung are combining their mobile payment products to offer merchants an integrated mobile payment system.

Youth payments company Oink is partnering with Discover to add scale to Oink's efforts to adapt its online payment system for in-store use.

Smartphone commerce company LoopPay has released LoopWallet, as well as a fob that enables users to store payment credentials.

French secure-chip testing provider Fime says it has strengthened its technology for EMV and mobile payment certification through an agreement with Agilent Technologies.

PayPal has hired Danese Cooper for the new position of Head of Open Source, a role meant to improve PayPal's engagement with external software engineers.

Planet Payment's president, Carl Williams, has been elevated to CEO, succeeding Philip Beck, who will remain chairman of the multi-currency transaction processor's board.

EMV security is in the spotlight after a recent string of retailer breaches affecting magnetic-stripe card data, but many critics call EMV-chip cards "last decade's technology."

BNY Mellon's treasury services business is building a new infrastructure to facilitate tasks tied to corporate payments, such as processing, transaction tracking and pricing—particularly for clients who make payments across borders.

Allowing merchants to set up recurring debits or pull money from a Bitcoin account seems in conflict with the Bitcoin protocol itself, which was built for push transactions, allowing consumers to have a better handle on what payments they make. But pull transactions are just what a partnership between Coinbase and Balanced will enable.

Visa and MasterCard are adopting emerging communications technology called host card emulation (HCE), which is designed to power bank and merchant-led mobile payments apps with less reliance on phone hardware.

Retail giant Target Corp.'s headache-inducing data breach brings to mind the 1982 Tylenol poisoning crisis—an event that drug maker Johnson & Johnson handled with such aplomb that it restored public confidence in its medicine, altered the way retailers handle product safety and established itself as the gold standard for crisis management.