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Federal banking regulators this month cracked down on MetaBank, a major prepaid card issuer, an action that threw into question the pending initial public offering of prepaid card program manager NetSpend Corp. Austin, Texas-based NetSpend is scheduled to price its long-planned IPO on Thursday, according to reports on the financial …
Read More »Out of Stealth, MobilePay USA Promises to Crack the POS
Payments-industry observers who have been frustrated by the slow progress of near-field communication (NFC) technology for point-of-sale mobile payments may find an alternative in a new mobile application called MobilePay USA. The service surfaced last week when it won an award at a conference sponsored by TechCrunch, a technology blog. …
Read More »Visa, MasterCard Settle with DoJ, But AmEx Vows a Fight
The U.S. Department of Justice and seven states on Monday sued Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and American Express Co. over their merchant-acceptance policies, especially those that restrict discounting for other cards or payment forms. Visa and MasterCard immediately announced a settlement, but AmEx said it would fight. The antitrust lawsuit …
Read More »Banks’ Remote Capture Fee Focus Is Misplaced, Experts Say
Many financial institutions that have jumped into remote deposit capture to reap fee income, or have shied away from it out of fear of risk, may be missing the point, according to experts who spoke this week at a conference on the subject. Instead, banks and credit unions should focus …
Read More »Heartland Adds an Encrypting PC Wedge to Its E3 Line
With 5,100 small and mid-sized businesses already using its E3 end-to-end encryption terminals, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. early next month will roll out its E3 magnetic-stripe reader for PC-based payment applications. The E3 wedge is a small, mag-stripe-reading wedge that plugs into the USB port of a personal computer or …
Read More »Hypercom Rejects Rival Terminal Maker VeriFone’s Hostile Bid
Leading U.S. point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. late on Wednesday disclosed it was making a cash bid for archrival Hypercom Corp. in what VeriFone says is an effort to expand its presence in continental Europe. Hypercom's board of directors early Thursday rejected the offer, calling it “opportunistic,” and said …
Read More »With Springbok, Fifth Third Gets into Open-Loop Prepaid
Merchant acquirer Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC is also a sizable closed-loop gift card processor, and now it’s about to get into the processing of open-loop prepaid cards through its acquisition of bankrupt Springbok Services Inc.’s technology platform. The acquisition follows closely on the heels of Fifth Third Processing’s announcement …
Read More »Bling Nation’s PayPal Tie-In Gets a Boost from VeriFone
Bling Nation Ltd.’s decision to use VeriFone Systems Inc. terminals, announced this week, includes an agreement to harness VeriFone’s transaction gateway as well as its reseller network in a move that could bring PayPal Inc. acceptance to thousands of brick-and-mortar merchants. Bling has been testing PayPal acceptance since the end …
Read More »Effort to Sign up Acquirers Nearly Complete, Discover Says
Reflecting trends seen by its larger network competitors, Discover Financial Services on Monday reported modest growth in credit card volumes and bigger growth in debit. Discover, in releasing earnings for its third fiscal 2010 quarter ended Aug. 31, also said that its 4-year-old effort to recruit merchant acquirers to sign …
Read More »Consolidation Marches on As Fifth Third Buys NPC
Another seismic merger rumbled through the merchant-acquiring industry on Wednesday when the big acquirer Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC announced it had struck an agreement to buy Louisville, Ky.-based National Processing Co. When the deal closes, Cincinnati-based Fifth Third will have more than 420,000 merchant locations and annualized charge volume …
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