The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit Thursday to stop VeriFone Systems Inc. from buying Hypercom Corp., saying the proposed $485 million stock deal “would substantially reduce competition in the U.S. point-of-sale terminal market.” The DoJ said the current plan to sell most of Hypercom’s U.S. assets to the North …

Marketing via social-network tools, long thought to be a feature primarily of e-commerce, is rapidly moving to the physical point of sale as merchants seek new ways to generate sales and independent sales organizations look for ways to differentiate themselves. This move to the point of sale, meanwhile, has been …

n Visa Inc. announced on Wednesday a digital wallet aimed at increasing its share of transactions in mobile payments, e-commerce, and at the point of sale. n The digital wallet will store all the payment cards in a consumer’s wallet, including non-Visa branded cards, Jim McCarthy, Visa's head of global …

In another indication that micropayments are staging a comeback, Live Gamer Inc. and Skrill Holdings Ltd. on Tuesday announced an integrated platform that lets game publishers collect small sums from users around the world without chargeback or foreign-exchange risk. The integration also represents the U.S. debut of London-based Skrill, which …

The hype still abounds, but mobile payments and banking seem to be taking some concrete steps this week toward wider adoption. –Mitek Systems Inc., the leading developer of software for mobile remote deposit capture, on Monday announced that five of the nation’s 10 largest retail banks now use its flagship …

At least some banks and merchants may be forging ahead into chip card payments, but presentations at an industry trade show this week leave doubt whether the rest of the industry is ready to follow. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has now enabled all of its U.S. stores with terminals to accept …

The telecommunications companies that own the Isis mobile-payments joint venture have apparently given up on the idea of creating their own merchant network and instead are redirecting their efforts on a mobile wallet, according to a published report. If confirmed, the Isis move means that the existing payment card networks …

Intuit Inc. on Monday dropped flat transaction fees for its GoPayment mobile-payments service just over two months after Square Inc. did the same thing, an indication that a price war could be breaking out between two of the major companies competing for brand-new and small businesses that use smart phones …

Nearly 90% of all bank fees merchants pay goes toward cash management and card processing, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Association for Financial Professionals, a trade group for corporate financial officers. Meanwhile, some 79% of retailers expect recent legislative changes, including the Durbin Amendment, not only …

Merchant groups on Monday sought to assure Congress that they won't reject small debit card issuers' cards once the so-called Durbin Amendment makes large issuers' debit cards much cheaper to accept. “If merchants didn't accept the card, they would risk losing the sale and losing the customer; a risk very …