Acquiring

  Seemingly shunned by traditional lenders during the Great Recession a few years ago, small merchants turned to alternative financing to buy inventory and equipment. It’s a trend that shows few signs of dissipating. PayPal Inc. this week said it had lent $500 million in the first 18 months of …

  Consumers continued to make retailer tills ring in the first quarter, increasing sales, minus automobiles and fuel purchases, at a 4.5% growth rate over the same period in 2014, finds Visa Inc.’s latest Retail Spending Monitor. Overall retail sales growth, include automobile sales, was a modest 1.2%. The largest …

Processing giant First Data Corp. didn’t manage to record a second consecutive profitable quarter, but its financial picture did continue to brighten. Simultaneously, First Data officially launched two new, smaller-footprint products in its Clover line of mobile point-of-sale technology. The Atlanta-based company on Monday announced it had taken a $112 …

The message about EMV and its payment-processing benefits is not sinking in with smaller merchants. That’s the assessment from Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s chief executive Robert O. Carr, who says Heartland is responding by offering all-in-one security technology that includes but goes beyond EMV. “Well, resonating would be an overstatement,” …

Independent sales organization Total Merchant Services Inc. hopes a newly altered agent-compensation plan will result in more merchants using EMV-compatible point-of-sale terminals. The U.S. payment card industry is migrating to EMV chip cards, requiring that merchants use compatible terminals. As a way to motivate its sales agents and get more …

By Jim Daly Leading wire-transfer providers The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc. both reported big growth in their online businesses in the first quarter while merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. posted strong increases in charge volume. • They’re still a small portion of its overall business, but …

Visa Inc.’s branding and marketing strengths were what won Costco Wholesale Corp. over from American Express Co. in a set of exclusive acceptance and cobrand agreements announced early in March, according to Visa chief executive Charles W. Scharf, who spoke Thursday afternoon during a conference call to discuss Visa’s results …

Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service will be accepted by electronics giant Best Buy Co. Inc., first for in-app purchases and then, later this year, in all of its 1,050 U.S. stores, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Monday. Cook also announced that some 50 hospitals have agreed to accept …

By John Stewart Ahead of an expected separation later this year from its long-time parent eBay Inc., PayPal Inc. on Wednesday reported strong growth in both its overall business and in the burgeoning mobile-payments market. Payments volume for the San Jose, Calif.-based processor climbed 24% in the first quarter compared …

The allure of recurring revenue combined with low interest rates and investors prospecting for new assets are contributing to a potentially prosperous time for sellers of merchant portfolios. That’s the assessment from a presentation Tuesday at the Southeast Acquirers Association annual conference in New Orleans. Also, the Electronic Transactions Association …