Competitive Strategies

EMV chip card payments at the U.S. point of sale have been around, officially at least, for two years now, but consumers still perceive them as slow, and many merchants still don’t accept chip cards, according to a poll of consumers and retailers by merchant processor Cayan. The time to …

While denying any wrongdoing in the matter, card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc. settled two patent lawsuits with Gemalto S.A. Under the terms of the settlement, CPI Card Group agreed to make a one-time $750,000 payment in the fourth quarter. Both lawsuits will be dismissed and both parties agreed not …

A panel of processing executives on Thursday sought to shake an audience of merchant-sales representatives out of traditional ways of thinking about critical matters ranging from pricing to new technology. In some cases, years-old tactics came under attack. “How many of you are giving a free terminal away and competing …

With the rise of the independent software vendor, do traditional independent sales organizations still have a role to play—and if they do, what is it? That question may have been unthinkable a few years ago, but now some observers see ISVs shoving ISOs aside as they code new applications for …

The Federal Reserve’s call for a faster-payments system to be in place in the United States by 2020 has been termed everything from a vision to a goal, a soft goal, or a deadline. One thing it isn’t is a mandate. So can faster payments arrive in less than two …

Grocer Whole Foods Market, now a unit of Amazon.com Inc., said it is investigating a breach of the point-of-sale software used in its taprooms and full-service restaurants in some of its stores. Whole Foods did not say how many locations or how many cards are affected. It said the payment system for the …

Canadian pension-fund manager Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec and private-equity firm Novacap said they would invest in Quebec-based Pivotal Payments, valuing the merchant processor at about C$525 million ($424 million), Pivotal Payments announced. Processor First Data Corp. introduced its “Disburse-to-Debit” service that pushes funds across debit networks so that businesses can …

Merchant processor Square Inc. will provide payment services to Eventbrite Inc., which provides a platform for ticket sales, and will invest $25 million in the company, Square announced Thursday. Earlier, Square said it will make Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay service available to merchants using its Square Checkout online service. Square said …

There are still many unknowns, but siding and the roof are on order for the frame of the Federal Reserve’s faster-payments project. That’s the message conveyed Tuesday by Fed officials and payments-industry executives who participated in a years-long effort to speed up U.S. electronic payments as well as make them …

Consumer-goods manufacturer Shinola has signed up to use the point-of-sale financing service from Affirm Inc. The ATM Industry Association released an Operation Choke Point resource kit for ATM operators. The association said ATM operators continue to receive account-closure notices despite the Department of Justice’s public statement to end the enforcement program. Merchant services provider SignaPay Ltd. released the PayLo …