Acquiring

Seemingly trapped in North America after shedding its money-losing British credit card operation in March, Discover Financial Services LLC suddenly is a global payments player with its pending deal to buy Diners Club International from Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank N.A. for $165 million in cash. The deal adds 8 million merchant …

After first trying to sell its merchant-processing business as a single unit, bankrupt Solidus Networks Inc., which does business as Pay By Touch, is expected to sell half of it to a big Utah-based merchant acquirer, Merrick Bank Corp., for $2 million, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court …

Talks under way between processor First Data Corp. and banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. indicate Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC, the world's largest merchant acquirer, might be split between its two owners, according to documents filed this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Greenwood Village, Colo.-based First Data, which …

Online merchants implementing payment alternatives to bank cards are beginning to report significant results. Since it started to accept PayPal in November, for example, online closeout retailer Overstock.com Inc. has seen the alternative payment method soar to 10% of its revenues and 12% of its orders, according to Alan Johnson, …

A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives late last week that proposes to lay down new rules for how payment card interchange would be set raises many questions beyond whether the banking or retail lobby carries more clout in Congress. The questions can be summed up in one: …

A problem the electronic payments industry calls “friendly fraud,” which has long dominated chargebacks for online sellers of digital goods from songs to software, is getting worse for these merchants, according to the top executive of a payments processor specializing in this market. Gene Hoffman, chairman and chief executive of …

With free card-swipe terminals having already captured the imagination of acquirers and merchants, the notion of free check scanners might not be far behind. Indeed, free equipment that reads magnetic-ink-character-recognition lines while capturing check images could be the key for banks to drive remote deposit capture adoption among small businesses, …

Bolstered by the acquisition of convenience-store giant 7-Eleven Inc.'s sizable ATM business, leading non-bank ATM network operator Cardtronics Inc. on Thursday reported fourth-quarter financials that show an improvement in most operating measures. Company executives insist their efforts to improve the performance of 7-Eleven's high-function Vcom kiosks as well as other …

Recent research by Aite Group LLC estimated the Visa and MasterCard bank card networks paid nearly $5 billion to merchants and card issuers between 2005 and 2007 to spur acceptance or issuance of their respective brands (Digital Transactions News, Feb. 20). Visa Inc.'s latest registration statement, filed Monday in advance …

Counter-intuitive though it may be, independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers in general are seeing their spreads increase while simultaneously facing margin compression. The reason, according to a new report from Aite Group LLC assessing trends in the acquiring industry: acquirers are generating new revenues from their merchants outside of …