The already competitive world of electronic bill payments heated up this week with the announcement that wire-transfer leader The Western Union Co. and payment-technology provider Yodlee Inc. together will provide online bill-payment services, including expedited bill payments. Their pitch: direct access to more than 4,000 utilities, financial institutions, mortgage companies, …

In a move that could give it a big boost in signing up banks to issue cards on its network, Discover Financial Services Inc. on Tuesday announced a deal with TSYS Inc. under which TSYS clients will be able to issue Discover credit and prepaid cards and use TSYS for …

Bill Me Later Inc. will work with two to three merchants starting next month to test an extension of its online, credit-based payments service to the physical point of sale. If the test yields good results, the Timonium, Md.-based processor will likely launch a commercial service by the middle of …

Data Insecurity Part 8 Few payment innovations have produced the stark schizophrenia that we are experiencing with mobile commerce. Normally somber business types are rubbing their hands together at the prospects of reaching consumers on a one-to-one basis, online, all the time, anywhere they happen to be. Meanwhile, typically apprehensive …

A leading retailer trade group on Thursday called for the payment card networks to stop forcing merchants to store credit card numbers, in effect challenging banks and the networks to take more responsibility for preventing data thefts. In a letter to the PCI Security Standards Council, an organization the networks …

A merchant trade group and at least one bank card network are exchanging fire again this week over the fees merchants pay to accept cards. Triggering the skirmish this time was a press release and report prepared by the Merchants Payments Coalition as a follow-up to a July 19 Congressional …

As fear of fraud climbs at electronic-funds transfer networks along with PIN debit traffic counts, the networks are adopting a variety of technologies to detect fishy transactions. The latest is Pulse EFT Association LP, a Houston-based unit of Discover Financial Services Inc. Pulse on Tuesday announced it is rolling out …

The Sept. 30 deadline for large merchants to certify compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, passed quietly over the weekend with an estimated half of so-called Level 1 merchants meeting the card industry's guidelines for protecting card data from fraudsters. And, according to experts contacted by …

For all the publicity surrounding merchant dissatisfaction with payment-acceptance costs, the issue doesn't rank high with online retailers looking into alternatives to bank-issued credit and debit cards, a payment-industry researcher says. E-commerce merchants are adopting, or investigating, such payment providers as PayPal Inc. and Bill Me Later Inc. hoping most …

Assurz Inc., which this week signed up its biggest merchant so far for its transaction-guarantee service, expects to have about 10 large merchants and between 20 and 30 smaller ones on its client roster by year's end, according to Steve Hoffman, chief executive of the Redwood City, Calif.-based startup, which …