Acquiring

  Sales agents as a way to sell payment-processing services to merchants aren’t going away, but they aren’t staying the same. That’s according to a new research report from Double Diamond Group LLC, a Centennial, Colo.-based payments-advisory firm. “This is a period of significant change in acquiring,” says Rick Oglesby, …

Defending the federal government’s guidance for providing financial services to legal marijuana businesses, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official on Tuesday said more than 100 banks and credit unions are now working with cannabis-industry customers. One consultant who connects banks with marijuana merchants confirms that financial-institution interest in the budding …

Visa Inc. on Thursday announced a new network service to flag high-risk transactions at fuel pumps, and the PCI Security Standards Council published guidance to help merchants and other organizations that handle payment card data manage their relationships with third parties to whom their outsource data-security tasks. n Visa calls …

Rather than jumping to conclusions about the implications of Square Inc.’s decision last week to implement a Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card solution that forgoes PINs and instead relies on a signature at the point of sale, it’s important to first ask the question: Why would a payments disruptor and tech …

Stressing such factors as the rapid growth of mobile commerce and the advantages of streamlined integration, representatives from Discover Financial Services, Mercury Payment Systems LLC, and PayPal Inc. on Tuesday urged a roomful of point-of-sale technology resellers to begin moving quickly on selling mobile payments to retail clients. “I would …

Merchant acquirer and payment-technology developer Merchant Warehouse is adding PayPal acceptance to its Genius point-of-sale platform, the Boston-based company announced Monday. Merchant Warehouse’s Genius system enables merchants to accept payments and to manage services like loyalty, mobile commerce, gift, and rewards programs. PayPal is activated remotely, requiring no action by merchants. …

  Vantiv Inc.’s $1.65 billion acquisition in May of Mercury Payment Systems LLC appears to be paying off already. In the second quarter, Cincinnati-based Vantiv said Mercury accounted for approximately 5% of the payment processor’s net revenue growth. Vantiv’s second-quarter revenue increased 11.6% to $331.3 million from $296.9 million a …

  Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is paying $375 million to expand its position as a higher education payments provider. The Princeton, N.J.-based processor announced today it bought Lenexa, Kansas-based TouchNet Information Systems Inc. Heartland says this is its highest-priced acquisition to date. TouchNet provides a variety of payment services to …

In a busy day for First Data Corp., the leading payment processor on Wednesday reported a reduced quarterly loss and its best revenues since going private, and that it plans to buy digital gift-card services provider Gyft Inc. Thanks to recent tech-company acquisitions and moves to improve its debt-laden balance …

The big merchant acquirer TransFirst Inc. gave notice Wednesday that it is planning a partial initial public offering. Hauppauge, N.Y.-based TransFirst filed a registration statement, or S-1, with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing its IPO plans and putting a tentative value of $100 million on the deal. The filing says …