Acquiring

While many payments firms have complained about the expensive and time-consuming process of getting state money-transmitter licenses, and, more recently, of potentially needing licenses to operate virtual currencies, the regulatory pendulum occasionally swings the other way. Late last month, Illinois quietly dropped a 2013 cease-and-desist order against merchant processor Square …

Many news accounts of PayPal Holdings Inc.’s spinoff from parent company eBay Inc. noted that PayPal’s market capitalization was in the $50 billion range, but few provided context on where that placed the company among its publicly traded peers. Turns out, PayPal instantly became the fourth-largest payments player, trailing only …

By John Stewart A new service from Square Inc. that accelerates merchants’ access to their funds in return for a 1% fee is likely to gain popularity among the small sellers that primarily use Square for transaction processing, according to some observers. That may hand Square a key advantage in …

By John Stewart At Infinite Peripherals Inc., there’s nothing peripheral about the mobile point of sale. The Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based company, whose stock in trade is not the mobile device but just about anything that can be connected to it, is growing rapidly in tandem with the soaring popularity …

By John Stewart When First Data Corp. last month formally let the world know it intends to make an initial public offering of stock, the massive processor said it plans to use the IPO’s proceeds to reduce its big debt load. Some experts said this could free up capital so …

With just 55 days to go, separate studies released this week show that the Oct. 1 target date for the U.S. to adopt the EMV chip card standard is looking more and more like a psychological deadline than a real one. Both merchants and credit and debit card issuers are …

No category of payment-card-accepting merchants, including health-care providers, is immune from the EMV liability shift coming Oct. 1. Yet, some payments providers specializing in servicing clinics and hospitals say there is a lack of understanding among their clients that goes beyond what acquirers have found in other merchant categories. “Health …

By John Stewart With the business of selling merchant accounts growing more technology-based every day, how are processors going to recruit new independent sales organizations that have the necessary expertise? For at least some processors, the answer lies in inducing independent software vendors, known as ISVs, to become ISOs as …

  As the U.S. payment card industry hurtles toward its EMV destiny approaching on Oct. 1, the process for certifying EMV-compliant point-of-sale terminals is moving along well, albeit with one exception. Point-of-sale systems, which are available in a myriad of configurations with software from one company, hardware from another and …

By John Stewart It is a commonplace notion that unicorns are to be encountered only in myth. But in the world of venture capital, they are becoming increasingly numerous. While it was once considered extremely rare for a privately held startup to achieve a $1 billion-plus valuation, there are now …