The Credit Card Fair Fee Act, a bill that would inject government into the interchange-setting process, has been resurrected after dying in committee last year. But this time there are more players around the table seemingly less inclined to sympathize with the defenders of the current bank card interchange system. …
Read More »Merchant And ISO Austerity Leads to Tough Quarter at VeriFone
Merchants and independent sales organizations just aren't in a buying mood, and that's hurting the top line of the largest U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, VeriFone Holdings Inc. San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone late Tuesday reported that revenues for its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended April 30 fell 13.5% to $201.6 million …
Read More »Four Years Later, a Lawsuit Springs from CardSystems Breach
Four years later, the fallout from the notorious CardSystems Solutions Inc. data breach?at the time the biggest hacking of payment card data ever?surfaced last week and looks like it could go on for months or even years. Merchant acquirer Merrick Bank Corp. is suing Savvis Inc., the company that inspected …
Read More »Eye on Mobile Payments: Intuit, Bango Launch Card Services
Intuit Inc. on Thursday entered the race to sign up plumbers, carpet cleaners, delivery people, and other small on-the-go merchants for card acceptance. The Mountain View, Calif.-based vendor of the popular QuickBooks accounting program rolled out a product, called GoPayment, that works on mobile phones but doesn't require other hardware, …
Read More »Congress Will Study Interchange And Eyes Rules for Gift Cards
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a sweeping credit card reform bill that leaves out retailer-backed regulation of interchange. The bill, which the Senate sent to the House Tuesday, includes a Congressional interchange study and could open the door to controls on gift cards. The House earlier …
Read More »NRF Exec: Non-Credit Card Discounts Have a ’50-50′ Chance
The U.S. Senate didn't pass a credit card reform bill last week as many expected, but senators are expected to take up the issue again Tuesday. The question for the merchant-acquiring industry is whether the final bill, which is concerned with regulating credit card issuers' most controversial practices, also would …
Read More »A New Bill Seeks to Allow But Also Regulate Internet Bets
A bill to establish an enforcement framework for licensed online gambling operators to accept wagers from individuals in the U.S. was introduced on Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. The legislation is designed to replace the controversial …
Read More »Heartland Reports a Loss, While Carr Decries a MasterCard Fine
The top two executives of merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. on Thursday painted a picture of a company on the mend in the wake of the big data breach it disclosed in January. But the recession and the far-from-over effects of the breach still took a toll on the …
Read More »By Snapping up Commerciant, BankServ Enters Mobile Market
Specialty payment processor BankServ, one of the pioneers of remote deposit capture, is preparing a move into the mobile-payments market thanks to its recent acquisition of the assets of Commerciant LP. Houston-based Commerciant offers merchants wireless payments software and a unique wireless terminal that scans checks and takes credit card …
Read More »Merchant Group Pushes Card-Security Standard in Parallel to PCI
A payments-focused group of heavyweight merchants is emerging from obscurity to push for new standards to protect credit and debit card data. But just how these standards would complement or possibly conflict with the existing Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) remains unknown. The organization, called the Merchant Advisory Group, …
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