It may be as rare as an ivory-billed woodpecker, but the merchant that accepts Visa without also accepting MasterCard or vice versa is not extinct in the United States. Within the past week, discount retailer Dollar General Corp. announced it would accept Visa credit and check (signature-debit) cards but not …

Responding in part to unique security issues created by electronic image exchange in the U.S., the nation's largest settler of clearinghouse check volume this week introduced a registry for what it calls image-survivable security features to protect check images from fraud. The registry, operated by the Dallas-based National Clearing House …

Rod Katzfey, the new boss of Comdata Processing Systems, has worked for some of the nation's biggest merchant acquirers?U.S. Bancorp, First Data Corp., and, most recently, ABN AMRO Merchant Services, where he was general manager. He expects that some day the company he joined this month as senior vice president …

Visa USA, which on Wednesday announced it has completed a massive, five-year project to overhaul its authorization platform, says the new system will allow the network to handle expected jumps in both the volume and diversity of electronic transactions. The overhaul, which its chief architect, John Partridge, calls “the single …

Bitpass Inc. is expected to announce next week a new processing platform that will, among other things, allow consumers to set up electronic wallets they can use to both pay for and store digital content like songs, videos, and games. The new platform, called the iMedia Commerce Engine, will support …

Problems with transactions could cost e-commerce merchants and other Internet businesses some $60 billion in sales through 2010, according to a consumer survey released Monday. Altogether, 88% of consumers reported problems with transactions at shopping, banking, travel, and insurance sites. About one-third of consumers who run into checkout or payment …

In coming months, software colossus Microsoft Corp. will be reaping bushels of publicity about Microsoft Windows Vista, the newest version of the world's leading desktop operating system that's scheduled for release early next year. Along for the ride, and with a novel approach to the electronic payments business, is a …

Check imaging at ATMs is poised to become a big business, much bigger even than some experts had thought up to now. Driven by the Check Clearing Act for the 21st Century (Check 21), enacted in October 2004, banks are just now starting to equip machines to take so-called envelopeless …

A Conshohocken, Pa.-based processor has begun marketing a service that allows employees covered by flexible-spending health-care plans to use any payment or loyalty card they have to access benefits. Finpago Inc. announced this week an agreement with health-benefits administrator WageWorks Inc., San Mateo, Calif., to launch its FSAok AnyCard program …

While many bankers and industry experts lament the continuing rise in volume of so-called substitute checks, the paper documents most banks require for clearing of items that had been converted into electronic image files, newly available industry data indicate the number of checks cleared as electronic images is rising even …