Acquiring

Will Square Inc. apply for a national banking charter, now that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has opened the door to financial-technology firms? As of late Wednesday, the answer remains unclear. “We’re really well-positioned to broaden access to the financial system, which is our core purpose,” said …

E-commerce sales accounted for 30% of the total spend in the second quarter, according to First Data Corp.’s “2018 Payments and Commerce Mid-Year Review.” Overall spending in the quarter increased 4.8% from the same quarter a year ago. By channel, in-store sales increased 4% and e-commerce increased 6.7%. The report …

Financial technology firms, many of which command significant positions in the payments business, can now apply to become national banks. Moving on a proposal it’s had under consideration for months, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced on Tuesday it will begin accepting bank-charter applications from fintech firms. …

It’s a fact of doing business that retailers have to contend with fraud. Now, the cost of managing fraud has increased, says LexisNexis Risk Solutions in its 2018 True Cost of Fraud report for retailers. For every dollar of fraud, merchants pay $2.94, a figure that is 6% more than …

Citing acceptance costs, Foods Co, a California unit of leading supermarket chain The Kroger Co., says it will stop accepting Visa credit cards Aug. 14 at 26 stores. “Foods Co is discontinuing the acceptance of Visa credit cards to save on the high costs associated with the credit card company’s …

Processor First Data Corp.’s strategy of providing payments integration to independent software vendors appears to be yielding results. The Atlanta-based company said it signed 94 ISVs in the second quarter. That, along with good growth in its direct-sales channel, contributed to the 17.1% growth in second-quarter revenue in First Data’s …

Joe Kaplan, the chief executive of merchant processor Paya and former president of the Electronic Transactions Association’s board of directors, died unexpectedly last week, the ETA announced. Kaplan was the former CEO of Total Merchant Services and founded Innovative Merchant Solutions, which he sold to Intuit Inc. in 2003 and …

The independent sales organization business is one that has spawned multimillion-dollar fortunes for numerous entrepreneurs. But perhaps it’s time for the industry to begin thinking beyond pure profit, merchant-acquiring executives suggested Thursday. The executives participated in a panel dubbed “Payments Doing Good” at the MidWest Acquirers Association annual conference in …

The Pulse debit network, Diners Club International, and the network partners of Discover Financial Services collectively generated $57.3 billion in second-quarter volume, a 14% increase from a year earlier, Discover reported Thursday. Pulse, the biggest of the three units in Discover’s Payment Services segment, posted $44.3 billion in volume, up …

Processor Stripe launched Stripe Issuing, a platform to aid merchants creating their own credit and debit cards. The service enables developers and businesses to create physical or virtual cards with a single application programming interface call to the platform. Stripe said it is not issuing cards directly to consumers. Physical cards …