Acquiring

Do competing acquirers run a significant risk if they ignore the way Square Inc. operates? Some experts are now saying they do, though you wouldn’t think so in the light of recent events. When 6-year-old Square went public in November, the result was bloody. On the first day of trading, …

Contrary to what many may suspect, price is not the top reason retailers switch from one point-of-sale provider to another, according to a study from Capterra Inc., a business-software review site. In a survey of more than 400 merchants, 34% cited a POS system’s lack of necessary features as the …

• Braintree launched Braintree Auth as an invitation-only service in beta. The service streamlines integration of Braintree merchants with e-commerce platforms and eases the way for new payment methods enabled by Braintree, a unit of PayPal Holdings Inc. Braintree Auth currently processes payments on e-commerce platforms Bigcommerce, WooCommerce, and 3DCart. …

• The Federal Reserve picked consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to support its Faster Payments Task Force efforts this year by assessing solution proposals from various payments providers. • Merchant processor Square Inc. announced its “Build With Square,” a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that integrates point-of-sale and-online payments capabilities with …

• Nearly half—48%—of ATM operators did not have EMV acceptance enabled on their machines at the end of 2015, finds the 2016 ATM Channel EMV Readiness Survey released by the ATM Industry Association. Fourteen months ago, the survey predicted that figure would be 12%. Continuing uncertainty and confusion, routing issues, and …

Acquirers and financial institutions can put consumer and merchant affinity for smart phones to work for them when trying to comply with anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer regulations. Smart-phone activity, whether it’s purchasing behavior, location habits, or personally identifiable information associated with the wireless carrier account, can be used to vet the …

• Starbucks Corp. said JPMorgan Chase & Co. by year’s end will issue a Visa-branded Starbucks reloadable prepaid card that will allow cardholders to earn Starbucks “stars,” or loyalty points, for purchases just about anywhere Visa is accepted; the new card is an extension of Starbucks’ relationship with JPMorgan Chase’s …

By Eugene Rome   Merchant-service providers of all shapes and sizes learn the hard way that cutting corners by using cut-and-paste tactics to create a merchant agreement can end up in costly litigation. Independent sales organizations, third-party processors, and payment facilitators must have a merchant agreement that is tailored to …

• NCR Corp. says its Epsilon payments application received EMV certification from First Data Corp., enabling the app to process credit and debit EMV transactions in its Radiant POS and StorePoint POS products. • Former Merchant Customer Exchange LLC chief executive Dekkers L. Davidson joined the InStream Inc. board of directors. …

Independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and point-of-sale software developers facing the daunting task of certifying their unique products for EMV payment acceptance may face costs starting at $30,000. That figure, which comes from Andrey Tikhonov, senior director of payment technology at Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based Infinite Peripherals Inc., reflects the …