Acquiring

Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards have entered the classic phase of huge percentage growth from a very small base, according to new U.S. figures from Visa Inc. The leading network this week reported that American financial institutions had issued 3.5 million Visa-branded EMV cards as of March 31, an increase of …

  The fledgling Chase Merchant Services operation may now have a boss, but that doesn’t mean the considerable industry curiosity about the JPMorgan Chase & Co. payments unit is going to be quenched any time soon. Chase officials, beginning with newly appointed CMS chief executive Mike Passilla, are playing it …

  IP Commerce Inc., a 9-year-old Denver-based company that provides platforms for independent software vendors (ISVs) and other payments developers, will discontinue its front-end payment-processing service effective June 30, according to a notice on the home page of the company’s Web site. The company began notifying clients earlier this month, …

The primary reason consumers and small-business owners visit banks is to cash or deposit checks, but mobile capture removes that purpose, says Gary Brand, director of source capture optimization at Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based vendor of processing technology for financial institutions. “Something’s really happened, all of a sudden [banks …

  The rhetoric spewing from partisans on both sides of the massive credit card interchange-litigation settlement is heating up as a major deadline in the 8-year-old case approaches. May 28 is the last day the court overseeing the case will let merchants opt out of their share of monetary damages …

  Good news for independent sales organizations: authorization costs continued their long-term decline over the past two years, according to a recent industry survey. Not-so-good news: clearing and settlement costs have stopped declining, customer-service costs are rising, and processors are eyeing new fees to generate revenues from ISOs. Omaha-based The …

  The nascent trend toward tablets as cash-register replacements took several big steps forward this week, as technology players and at least one processor unveiled major promotions, including free transaction processing and other pricing deals, to entice small businesses to adopt mobile payments. On Wednesday, merchant processor Vantiv Inc. launched …

  Transaction volume at electronic-commerce processor Litle & Co. grew 39% in the first quarter, Litle’s new owner, Vantiv Inc., reported late Monday. Vantiv, a big merchant and card-issuer processor based near Cincinnati, said Litle contributed only one or two percentage points of Vantiv's 23% increase in merchant transactions from …

  Visa Inc.’s decision to license a version of its VisaNet processing network to JPMorgan Chase & Co. generated controversy in merchant-acquiring circles when the two companies announced their deal in February, but now Visa says it is getting inquiries from other client financial institutions that may be interested in …

  With a major expansion of its arrangement with PayPal Inc. due later this year, Discover Financial Services is now “the alternative network for alternative payments in the United States,” Discover chief executive David W. Nelms told an audience of merchant acquirers on Wednesday. Hinting that more deals similar to …