Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Discover Financial Services LLC last week completed a summer hat trick of partnerships with bank card merchant acquirers to broaden acceptance of its brand, and the card unit of Morgan Stanley says it's not finished. Discover announced its latest deal, involving Atlanta-based RBS Lynk Inc., one day after news broke …
Read More »Iron Triangle Vaults Acquiring Ranks with Deal to Buy BA ISO Unit
Iron Triangle Payment Systems LLC, a 3-year-old Louisville, Ky.-based processor that has been steadily pursuing plans to build an acquiring business by buying independent sales organizations, on Friday announced it is taking over the ISO business belonging to BA Merchant Services Inc. for an undisclosed sum. By adding the business, …
Read More »Stuck in a Rut, POP E-Checks Get a Boost from Bentonville
After about two years of lackluster growth, e-checks at the point of sale started popping in the second quarter, according to new statistics from NACHA?The Electronic Payments Association. Sources tell Digital Transactions News that the force behind POP's sudden popularity is none other than Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest …
Read More »Discover Signs up Global Payments, Is Talking to Other Top 10 Acquirers
In a deal on which the two parties spent the weekend hammering out final details, Discover Financial Services LLC and Global Payments Inc. on Monday said Global would take over processing and other acquiring functions on Discover transactions with merchants for which Global processes Visa USA and MasterCard Worldwide transactions. …
Read More »MasterCard Will Post Interchange Rates, Cap Fees for Gas Retailers
Bowing to merchant pressure, MasterCard Inc. said Tuesday it will publish its U.S. interchange rates on its Web site and cap interchange fees on certain gasoline purchases. The moves, which will include the first time either of the two major bank card associations has published its interchange rates publicly, follow …
Read More »VeriFone Banks on a Looming Upgrade Market in the U.S. And Canada
China, India, and other high-growth payments markets get a lot of attention nowadays, but leading U.S.-based payment-terminal marketer VeriFone Holdings Inc. still sees plenty of opportunity close to home. San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone's aggressive focus on North America comes even as its pending acquisition of Israel-based rival Lipman Electronic Engineering …
Read More »Study Warns of Contactless, Other Rising Risks for Top Acquirers
Contactless payments loom large among rising challenges now confronting even the most dominant processors in the U.S. merchant-acquiring business, according to a new study. The report estimates that acquirers processed 45.5 billion credit, prepaid, and signature-debit transactions in 2005, a huge electronic transactions market it says is controlled by five …
Read More »More Than Six Months Out, the Buzz Builds for BOC
It doesn't go live until next March 16, yet the new back-office conversion (BOC) electronic-check payment option already is attracting a good deal of interest from payment processors and their customers looking to reduce volumes of paper checks and speed customer service. “We believe this new conversion code will definitely …
Read More »Cutting Payment Costs, Wesco Helps Debitman with Issuer Gap
A Michigan convenience-store chain believes its new Debitman card program will lower its card-acceptance costs while simultaneously boosting customer loyalty by taking some of the sting out of rising gasoline prices. Debitman Card Inc. announced this week that Muskegon-based Wesco Inc., which operates 51 stores in the state, would join …
Read More »Discover Scores U.S. JCB Transactions in Latest Deal to Open Network
In the latest of a series of moves to open its network to outside card issuers and transaction processors, Discover Financial Services LLC on Wednesday said Discover Network will begin processing transactions for JCB International Credit Card Co. Ltd. some time next year. In 2008, Discover cardholders will be able …
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