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RideCharge Inc., a software vendor specializing in the taxicab market, is getting more mileage on its booking and payment application as the popularity of mobile phones grows. The Alexandria, Va.-based firm most recently added the largest cab company in Boston, the 200-plus vehicle fleet of Boston Metro Cab, to its …
Read More »There’s No Bill, But the Interchange War Heats up in D.C. All the Same
An interchange battle is raging this week in Washington D.C., even though there is no interchange bill pending in Congress. Some merchants, however, hope that will change soon and are pushing their agenda with an advertising campaign that includes a YouTube video and advertising designed to influence new members of …
Read More »Sale of Fifth Third Processing Biggest Such Deal in More Than a Year
In the biggest sale of a merchant acquirer in more than a year, private-equity firm Advent International Corp. will take a 51% stake in Fifth Third Processing Solutions through a deal announced today with the big processor's parent company, Fifth Third Bancorp. Boston-based Advent will pay $561 million in cash …
Read More »Acquiring Gains at First Data Despite a Tough Merchant Environment
First Data Corp. on Wednesday reported merchant-services revenue of $1.1 billion, up 18%. Excluding debit-network fees and Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC, revenue growth was 1%. First Data in November terminated its joint venture with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to operate Chase Paymentech. First Data signed nearly 116,000 domestic merchant locations, …
Read More »Merchants Vent Their Ire over Checkout Pricing on Google Site
The merchants have spoken, and they're none too happy with the new pricing plans Google Inc. disclosed earlier this month for its nearly 3-year-old Google Checkout online-payment service. Merchants are registering their ire on Google Checkout's Web site, where many of the 90-plus recent postings in a section reserved for …
Read More »Heartland Gets Hedge-Fund Investment And Warns Rival Processors
After weeks of bad tidings, there is some positive news for Heartland Payment Systems Inc., the Princeton, N.J.-based merchant acquirer struggling to recover from a data breach late last year. Last week, SAC Capital Partners, a high-profile hedge fund known for its investment savvy, bought 767,300 shares, or about 2%, …
Read More »Higher Fees Could be Rainmakers for the Bank Card Networks
More information is trickling out about new transaction fees planned by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. While the main ones are slightly under 2 cents per affected transaction, when applied to the vast stream of bank card purchases they could produce more than $600 million in new revenues for the …
Read More »Breach-Related Woes Continue to Pile up for Beleaguered Heartland
The breach-related troubles just keep piling on for merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc., according to the acquirer's annual report filed on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, Heartland revealed the data breach it sustained last year is under investigation not only by the U.S. …
Read More »Visa Acts Against Heartland, RBS?But Some Say It’s Not Enough
Visa Inc. has kicked breached merchant acquirers Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and RBS WorldPay Inc. off of its list of processors compliant with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI. That action sent the acquirers to a netherworld known as probation and triggered a debate in the payments industry …
Read More »Reload Competition Heats up with Visa’s MoneyGram Deal
Visa Inc. will quintuple the size of its Visa ReadyLink prepaid card reload network when the big money-transfer firm MoneyGram International Inc. enables its 40,000 U.S. locations to add funds to prepaid cards under a deal Visa announced Tuesday. The MoneyGram locations will make Visa's reload network nearly as big …
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