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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has begun accepting cards issued on the Debitman Card Inc. network, a 5-year-old system that allows merchants to issue and accept PIN-secured debit cards and clear transactions through the automated clearing house. Wal-Mart began taking the Debitman card Nov. 1 at all 3,600 U.S. Wal-Mart and Sam's …
Read More »First Data Ponders Options for Its Shrinking Card-Issuing Business
In a move that could lead First Data Corp. to sell its shrinking card-issuing operation, the Denver-based processor announced today it has hired investment banker Morgan Stanley to investigate options for the unit. The card-issuing business, one of three principal processing operations at First Data, has been rocked in recent …
Read More »iPayment CEO Sweetens His Offer, But Cautions Company’s Board
The latest offer from the top executive of Nashville, Tenn.-based merchant processor iPayment Inc. to buy the company and take it private is higher than the one he presented this spring, but contains what appears to be a blunt statement to iPayment board members that they should accept the offer …
Read More »Survey: Retailers Still Falling Short in Consumer Data Security
Merchants have a long road ahead of them in securing the consumer transaction data they house in their databases, if a survey released this week is any indication. Fewer than half of retailers surveyed have a formal plan in place to handle database intrusions, and of those that do, only …
Read More »Volume Grows for AmEx, As Does Dependence on Acquiring
U.S. transaction volume for American Express Co. grew nearly 19% in the third quarter, to $89 billion, over the year-ago period, the New York-based travel-and-entertainment company reported. Its U.S. card base increased 10%, to 42 million, of which 31.9 million are so-called basic cards. The U.S. accounts for nearly three-quarters …
Read More »PayPal Will Use VeriSign’s Gateway to Plunge Deeper into Acquiring
PayPal Inc. will use the transaction gateway it is buying from VeriSign Inc. for $370 million to thrust itself even more deeply into the business of acquiring transactions for small off-eBay Internet merchants, a senior executive for the transaction-processing unit of eBay Inc. tells Digital Transactions News. PayPal, which this …
Read More »How Pay By Touch Plans to Rely on CardSystems’ ISOs to Ramp up Fast
Pay By Touch Solutions, which earlier this week said it will buy the assets of CardSystems Solutions Inc. for an undisclosed price (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 17), plans to rely on the Atlanta processor's links with some 27 independent sales organizations to help sell its biometric-payments product to tens of …
Read More »Pay By Touch Trumps Bid from CyberSource for CardSystems
Pay By Touch Solutions, which said over the weekend it will buy the assets of troubled card processor CardSystems Solutions Inc. for an undisclosed price, apparently trumped an earlier bid for the same assets from CyberSource Corp. CyberSource, which withdrew on Saturday the offer it had made Sept. 23, says …
Read More »Paymentech-CMS Combo Creates Huge Acquirer?with Potential Pitfalls
This week's announced integration of giant merchant acquirers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. by their respective owners (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 5) creates a single entity of unprecedented scale?more than $500 billion in annual bank card charge volume through 13 billion transactions in the U.S. and Canada?but one …
Read More »JPMorgan, FDC Agree on Long-Awaited Paymentech-CMS Combo
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and First Data Corp. have come to terms on the long-awaited merger of acquiring-service providers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. in a deal that will create a behemoth processor handling 13.1 billion electronic transactions annually. According to a news release distributed this afternoon by …
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