“The boycott of Visa credit cards by The Kroger Co.’s Foods Co chain in central and northern California began Tuesday as planned, but the parent company still won’t say whether the boycott will be expanded to its many other units.”

“In a partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) along with the International Financial Corporation, the firm says it will promote digital financial inclusion in the continent through investments and technical assistance. The offering will target smaller businesses and would look to cater to largely unserved consumers, including displaced people and refugees with no official documents or identity papers.”

“Security flaws in mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) devices from vendors including Square, SumUp, iZettle, and PayPal have been disclosed by researchers.  Thursday at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, security experts from Positive Technologies said that vulnerabilities present in mPOS machines could allow unscrupulous merchants to raid the accounts of customers or attackers to steal credit card data.”

“Apple Pay is still too small to move the overall Services business (only 1-2% of Services revenue, growing at 40%). Today, Apple often markets the iPhone around the camera and its filters (portrait, studio, stage), notably with the “Shot on iPhone” campaign. In the future, we expect the digital wallet to be a marketable iPhone feature. Adoption of Apple Pay is growing, and we believe 31% of iPhone users have used Apple Pay in the past year, compared to 25% a year ago.”

“US Bank is looking to offload its card processor business Elan, with Finastra, FIS and Fiserv believed to be in the final bid. Elan provides card processing services to 1,800+ US banks. This includes payments services, credit card issuing, prepaid card solutions and ATM and debit card processing. It also provides transaction processing, terminal driving and monitoring and support services for more than 34,000 ATMs across the US and supports more than 13 million ATM and debit cards.”