Acquiring

As more and more companies vie to put mobile card-acceptance gear in the hands of tiny merchants, acquirers are starting to look at signing up merchants on their own merchant account rather than using the more traditional—but also more time-consuming–process of establishing an account for each seller. The method isn’t …

Higher cardholder spending and historically low credit losses helped American Express Co. post record first-quarter revenues and earnings. The company reported on Wednesday that U.S. card-billed business increased 12% to $139.6 billion in the first quarter from $124.1 billion in 2011’s first quarter. Volume outside the U.S. also increased 12% …

With rivals like PayPal Inc. and Square Inc. having made moves recently to enhance their point-of-sale payments offerings, Intuit Inc. on Tuesday confirmed it had bought AisleBuyer LLC, a 3-year-old startup whose technology lets consumers check themselves out of stores with their handsets. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, …

Vending machine payment-network operator USA Technologies Inc. has instituted a two-tier pricing option that gives machine owners the ability to offer discounts for cash. But the Malvern, Pa.-based company says early results show many consumers still prefer card payments even if paying by cash would save them some small change. …

A major merchant trade group on Monday fired an opening shot in what is likely to be a long, hard battle over credit card acceptance costs. The NACS, an association for convenience-store operators, released a report claiming that card discount fees in general—and especially credit card fees–are partly responsible for …

Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. says it believes fewer than 1.5 million card numbers were taken from its processing system in a data breach disclosed on Friday. Meanwhile, Visa Inc. has removed Global from its list of merchant processors compliant with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI), but Global …

A controversial New Jersey law that claims unused gift card balances as state property after two years and requires gift card sellers to obtain buyers’ ZIP codes is taking heavy fire. If it survives a repeal effort and court challenges, however, opponents fear gift card issuers will leave the state …

Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. confirmed late Friday afternoon that it sustained a data breach following press accounts earlier in the day of a breach variously reported as affecting 50,000 to potentially millions of payment cards. In a press release, Atlanta-based Global “announced it identified and self-reported unauthorized access into …

Groupon Inc.’s acquisition of a Web site that lets processors bid for merchant contracts represents a big opportunity for the online rewards giant but also underscores the dependence of such services on the merchant-acquiring business, a researcher who follows acquiring says. In the deal, announced on Friday, Groupon bought FeeFighters, …

n “The bankruptcy court in question agreed with our motion that the escrow account is for the consumer,” Trent Voigt, chief executive of JetPay LLC of Carrollton, Texas, told Digital Transactions News moments after a hearing ended in the case of Southern Sky Air & Tours LLC, doing business as …