Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The acquiring business is accustomed to a slow rate of change, but that deliberate pace is masking radical underlying shifts in how merchants handle payments and whom they deal with for processing services, according to research at First Annapolis Consulting, Annapolis, Md. Change comes so slowly in this business that …

A central Illinois grocery-store chain will expand online and add mobile payments beginning this fall. The service enables consumers to use credit and debit cards along with electronic benefits transfer cards to pay for orders, says Ithaca, N.Y.-based Rosie Applications Inc., the vendor providing the technology. The move by Quincy, …

• A payment card data breach reported in May by the hamburger chain Wendy’s Co. was much more extensive than originally thought, the company said Thursday, according to Reuters. Wendy’s now says the breach affected approximately 1,025 stores, or about 18% of the company’s U.S. and Canadian units. In May, …

Moneris Solutions USA, the U.S. arm of Canada-based Moneris Solutions Corp., appears to have suitors, according to a recent Bloomberg.com report. Moneris is a joint venture between RBC Financial Group and BMO Bank of Montreal. Bloomberg.com reports that merchant processor Vantiv Inc. and Warburg Pincus LLC, a New York-based private …

• ATM network operator Cardtronics plc announced organizational changes that include chief financial officer Edward H. West taking on the additional role of chief operations officer and North American Business Group president David Dove leaving the company later this year. Jonathan Simpson-Dent, who had been managing director of Cardtronics Europe, …

The password is one of the oldest authentication tools known to man, and now it is rapidly becoming the least respected among security experts for use online or in-app. Consumers’ use of easily guessed codes, coupled with a recent barrage of data breaches, has these experts predicting passwords will fade …

Merchants that add surcharges to credit card transactions likely can continue to do so despite the overturning of the interchange settlement that enabled them to do so. A federal appeals court last week threw out an agreement initially reached four years ago over card-network interchange and acceptance rules. The interchange …

U.S. Bank tried, but it couldn’t make its $6.95 fee for real-time person-to-person payments stick. The nation’s fifth-largest bank by assets disclosed Wednesday that such payments are now free. The Minneapolis-based bank says it was the first to go live with real-time payments over the bank-developed clearXchange P2P payments network, …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday announced its Walmart Pay mobile wallet is now available in all of its 4,612 U.S. stores in all 50 states. The rollout’s completion comes about seven months after the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing behemoth introduced the product and about 10 weeks after first making the app …

• U.S. Bank said customers can now make free, real-time person-to-person payments via Early Warning Services LLC’s clearXchange network; the bank charged a $6.95 fee for real-time payments when it went live on clearXchange earlier this year. • Processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc. announced top-level executive changes with president …

How do consumers feel about payment card acceptance costs, often referred to as “swipe fees”? According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, consumers want the existing debit card interchange price cap to continue, and they want credit card pricing to benefit them and merchants as opposed to “credit card …

• American Express Co. plans to roll out an online loan platform this year that will challenge other small-business lenders, including Square Inc. and On Deck Capital Inc., Bloomberg reported. • Independent sales organization Pace Payment Systems announced it is working with @Pay LLC on an integrated text-to-pay service. • …

During the last 20 years, I’ve worked for, consulted for, partnered with, or analyzed hundreds of payments companies and thousands of other firms that are in some way connected with payments companies, either as customers, prospects, or partners. Many of those companies have been highly successful, some explosively so. Others …

• ATM network operator Cardtronics plc, formerly Cardtronics Inc., completed its plan to re-domicile in the United Kingdom following approval of the plan by shareholders June 28. Cardtronics’ North American headquarters will remain in Houston, while its European headquarters will be in London. The company’s stock will continue to trade …

Speaking of merchant-network skirmishes, fighting between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. broke out anew last month when, citing high acceptance costs, Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit announced that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores through a gradual phase-out set to begin July 18. Wal-Mart’s carefully phrased …

It was great while it lasted, but it looks like the chip card party is over for VeriFone Systems Inc., the leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, at least for now. The U.S. conversion to EMV chip cards had produced a North American revenue windfall for VeriFone over the past couple …

Depending on your point of view, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., became either a hero or a villain in the payments business back in 2010 with his Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act. Among other things, the amendment capped debit card interchange for large issuers, pleasing merchants and ruffling the feathers …

The sweeping 4-year-old settlement between card networks and banks on the one hand and merchants on the other, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned Thursday, covered a lot of ground. But the case the agreement grew out of had as its central focus credit card …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday filed a counterclaim against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alleging that the retailer’s May lawsuit against the network is not an issue involving violations of federal regulations regarding debit cards, as Wal-Mart cast it, but a contract dispute. Visa says Wal-Mart “fraudulently induced” it to sign an acceptance …

A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a massive agreement initially reached four years ago over card-network interchange and acceptance rules, drawing a sudden veil of uncertainty over crucial legal matters much of the payments industry had thought were all but settled. In a 41-page opinion studded with sometimes …