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The final quarterly filing from iPayment Inc. as a public company contains a report of a double-digit gain in profit at the Nashville, Tenn.-based merchant acquirer as well as a terse reference to what amounts to continuing fallout from the huge data breach last year at Atlanta-based merchant processor CardSystems …
Read More »Home Depot: No Designs on Payments with Deal to Buy ILC
In sharp contrast to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., leading home-improvement retailer Home Depot Inc. professes no intentions of getting into the payments business even though, like Wal-Mart, it plans to operate a Utah-chartered industrial loan corporation, or ILC, that would give it an entrée into financial services. Less than a month …
Read More »Heartland Drives up Net with Expanded Merchant Base, Card Volume
Heartland Payment Systems Inc., one of the few publicly traded independent sales organizations, today reported its revenues jumped 39% in the first quarter, to $236.8 million, on a 34% increase in transaction volume, to $9.2 billion. Net income for the period came to $4.39 million, a 63% increase. The Princeton, …
Read More »PCI’s POS Costs Slow Retailer Adoption, Terminal Exec Says
Reluctance by merchants and independent sales organizations to assume the added costs of compliant terminals is contributing to the apparently slow rate at which retailers are adopting the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, an executive with a major terminal maker says. According to recent data from Visa USA, one of …
Read More »AmEx Discount Revenues Grow, but Rate Continues To Slip
Boosted by higher charge volume on its cards, American Express Co. on Monday reported in its first-quarter financials that discount revenue grew 13% to $2.97 billion, up 13% from $2.64 billion in 2005's first quarter. The travel-and-entertainment giant however, warned of “some erosion” in the average discount rate in the …
Read More »First National Merchant Solutions Shifts Toward ISOs for Growth
Long quiet on the reseller front, First National Merchant Solutions is signing up independent sales organizations as part of a strategic shift mapped out by its new president, Diana M. Mehochko. The merchant-acquiring unit of First National Bank of Omaha signed up half a dozen ISOs last year and is …
Read More »TSYS CEO Says Processor Will Build on Ties to Defecting Clients
Putting his best spin on a tough situation, processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) chief executive Philip W. Tomlinson today said he regards the credit card industry’s top three issuers as prospects for future business, even as all three begin or plan to take tens of millions of accounts off …
Read More »Coghlan Tells ISOs Visa Will Be More ‘Flexible’ and ‘Responsive’
Speaking to an audience of merchant processors, acquirers, and independent sales organizations, Visa USA's president and chief executive today promised the giant bank card network will become more open to non-issuers and responsive to their concerns, including matters related to operating regulations and data security. Appointed only nine months ago …
Read More »Eye on Acquiring: TSYS Rechristens Vital; VeriFone-RBS Lynk Deal
A year after it acquired the 50% interest in Vital Processing Services that it didn't already own, Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) has renamed the merchant-acquiring processor TSYS Acquiring Solutions and announced several new product lines. The Columbus, Ga.-based company, which is known primarily as a processor for card-issuing banks, …
Read More »VeriFone Gains Wireless-Terminal Strength with Lipman Acquisition
VeriFone Holdings Inc.'s proposed $793 million acquisition of rival Lipman Electronics Engineering Ltd. will give the U.S.'s leading payment terminal maker access to more countries and the fast-growing wireless-terminal segment, a processing analyst tells Digital Transactions News. “The advantage for VeriFone is to get into more countries offshore,” says Jamie …
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