The proposed merger of Fiserv Inc. and mega-processor First Data Corp. has huge implications for many parts of the payments industry. But the deal, if consummated as planned, could have an especially large effect on the U.S. debit card market. First Data owns the Star electronic funds network, while Fiserv …

The PCI Security Standards Council on Wednesday published its new software security standards and said the existing standard will be retired in 2022. The new set of requirements actually has two major components—The PCI Secure Software Standard and the PCI Secure Lifecycle Standard—and is under the umbrella of what the …

With the economy still humming along in 2018’s fourth quarter, a nearly 17% increase in merchant-processing volume by JPMorgan Chase & Co. augurs strong volume growth by Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. when the bank card networks report financial results later this month. New York City-based JPMorgan Chase operates the …

Vending-machine payments provider USA Technologies Inc. has announced several senior-level management changes, including the departure of its chief financial officer and the creation of a new chief operating officer position, as well plans to improve its corporate governance in the wake of an investigation into its accounting practices. The probe …

Payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) on Thursday unveiled a line of point-of-sale terminals and services for small and mid-size businesses, and took its Vital brand out of a 13-year retirement as the name for the new product suite. The cloud-based Vital POS has three major components: Vital Mobile, an …

Merchant plaintiffs and the state of New York filed motions Tuesday in a federal appellate court to dismiss the merchants’ challenge to New York’s law banning credit card surcharges. As a result, surcharges will be allowed when the merchant posts total prices for credit card purchases in dollars and cents. …

The new year is only a week old, but it’s already looking to be a strong one for dashboard payments. On Monday, Visa Inc. and SiriusXM Connected Vehicles Services Inc. said they plan to offer the SiriusXM e-wallet to auto manufacturers that deploy SiriusXM’s connected-vehicle services.  The Visa-SiriusXM announcement followed …

At first glance, a press released headlined “Mastercard Drops Its Name” might lead one to believe Mastercard will be the anonymous payment network going forward. But no, Mastercard Inc. is simply removing its name from its familiar interlocking circles logo, the company announced Monday. The name-drop marks the second time …

Hotel operator and franchisor Marriott International Inc. reported Friday that 8.6 million encrypted payment card records were compromised in the big data breach it disclosed Nov. 30. Of those, 354,000 cards were unexpired. The card statistics are included in an update Bethesda, Md.-based Marriott issued about the breach of the …

It was a nasty December and fourth quarter, but transaction-processor stocks still beat the major market indexes in 2018, according to an analysis by Barrington Research Associates Inc. Twenty-six publicly traded processor stocks posted a mean return of 3.01% for the year versus a negative mean return of 6.24% for …