Acquiring

The leveraged-buyout craze caught up with the electronic-payment processing industry on Monday when No. 1 processor First Data Corp. announced it had struck a $29 billion deal to be acquired by investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Under the plan approved by Greenwood Village, Colo.-based First Data’s board of …

The startling size of the TJX Cos. Inc. data breach–at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards compromised–has some electronic-payments experts wondering whether the card networks will ultimately succeed in winning merchant compliance with their data-security rules. “If a major U.S. retailer cannot have its house in order, how can …

Recent cases of card-data theft from retailers?and the publicity surrounding them?are apparently generating opportunity for startup security-software companies. “More and more retailers are looking for ways to prevent breaches,” says Mark Buczynski, vice president of marketing at BitArmor Systems Inc., a 4-year-old, Pittsburgh-based company that markets encryption software it has …

Broadening merchant acceptance and negotiating the shoals of merchant pricing will be key parts of Discover Financial Services LLC's strategy to survive and grow once parent company Morgan Stanley spins off the No. 4 payments network. Morgan Stanley, a New York City-based investment bank, late on Friday filed a document …

DreamPlayVentures, a Cedar Knolls, N.J.-based startup, is talking to transaction processors and retailers about a product that would let merchants generate revenue by selling advertising space on credit and debit card receipts. The firm this week reported that its parent, DreamPlay LLC, has filed a patent application describing its underlying …

A San Antonio, Texas company that specializes in clearing and settling consumer charges for telecommunications companies has signed up seven sellers of digital content for a new online payments gateway that lets users charge downloads to their phone bills. The seven undisclosed merchants are the first clients for what BSG …

Home-improvement giant Home Depot Inc. is pressing on with its plan to get an industrial-loan corporation charter despite a hostile political environment that has only grown stronger over the weekend. Opponents to ILC applications by commercial enterprises notched a victory Friday with Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s decision to abandon its efforts …

A letter from a major Hypercom Corp. investor to the point-of-sale terminal maker's chief executive advising a stock buyback and referring to a possible sale of the company, made public Friday in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing, has prompted rival VeriFone Holdings Inc. to target Hypercom customers with an …

Today, the much-heralded back-office conversion electronic-check code goes live on the automated clearing house network. But rather than throw a huge birthday party, executives of the ACH's governing body, NACHA?The Electronic Payments Association, and banks are marking BOC's debut in a decidedly low-key manner. BOC will allow retailers and other …

10 Tipping Points for the Payments Industry Part 10 Years and years of finger-crossing while pushing ever-more unprotected financial account data across an expanding array of vulnerable origination points and networks have come to a sudden and long overdue demise. When and how the electronic payments industry finally gets serious …