Prepaid cards branded by one of the national payment card networks are benefting most from the recession, but prepaid profitability overall is suffering, according to a survey of prepaid card executives whose results were released in a report this week. The survey, conducted by payments-research firm Aite Group LLC at …

Check volumes may be declining, but check-related crime remains by far the most common type of payment fraud reported by corporate financial officers. What's more, while overall losses still remain small, fraud attempts increased last year and the recession could be a cause, according to the Association for Financial Professionals. …

Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) will buy Metavante Technologies Inc. in a $2.94 billion all-stock deal announced on Wednesday. The acquisition will create a bank- and payments-processing giant with $5 billion in combined revenue and a vast array of products in everything from core banking services to credit, debit, …

First Data Corp. announced on Tuesday it will use technology from Inside Contactless, a French chipmaker, for its Go-Tag product, a sticker that can be affixed to mobile phones to make them work like contactless-payment devices. Under the three-year agreement, Inside Contactless will supply so-called prelams, or chip-and-antenna elements, that …

An interchange battle is raging this week in Washington D.C., even though there is no interchange bill pending in Congress. Some merchants, however, hope that will change soon and are pushing their agenda with an advertising campaign that includes a YouTube video and advertising designed to influence new members of …

In the biggest sale of a merchant acquirer in more than a year, private-equity firm Advent International Corp. will take a 51% stake in Fifth Third Processing Solutions through a deal announced today with the big processor's parent company, Fifth Third Bancorp. Boston-based Advent will pay $561 million in cash …

Visa Inc. is taking steps to more actively recruit consumers in its fraud-fighting efforts, including the development of an early-warning system that notifies cardholders in real-time when their cards are being used. Visa's Transaction Alert system, currently in pilot at banks including U.S. Bank, PNC Corp., and Wells Fargo & …

First Data Corp. on Wednesday reported merchant-services revenue of $1.1 billion, up 18%. Excluding debit-network fees and Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC, revenue growth was 1%. First Data in November terminated its joint venture with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to operate Chase Paymentech. First Data signed nearly 116,000 domestic merchant locations, …

The merchants have spoken, and they're none too happy with the new pricing plans Google Inc. disclosed earlier this month for its nearly 3-year-old Google Checkout online-payment service. Merchants are registering their ire on Google Checkout's Web site, where many of the 90-plus recent postings in a section reserved for …

After weeks of bad tidings, there is some positive news for Heartland Payment Systems Inc., the Princeton, N.J.-based merchant acquirer struggling to recover from a data breach late last year. Last week, SAC Capital Partners, a high-profile hedge fund known for its investment savvy, bought 767,300 shares, or about 2%, …