Competitive Strategies

Looking toward a breakthrough year in payments processing for online and mobile digital content, Valista Ltd. has signed a marketing and technology deal with IBM Corp. that it says will help it recruit its first major North American client since America Online Inc. The unnamed telecom operator, currently a client …

Viewpointe Archive Services, a check-image archive and exchange owned by some of the nation's largest banks, has signed its second client for its non-archive exchange service, called Pointe2Pointe. Columbus, Ga.-based Synovus Financial Corp., a holding company for 41 southeastern banks, follows Compass Bank, which signed up with Viewpointe early last …

Though he's only been on the job for a few weeks as chief executive of ProxyMed Inc., a transaction-processing, business-process outsourcing, and cost-containment company, John Lettko sees clear parallels between the industry he left–financial services–and the one he's entering?health care. Lettko, the former chief executive of Viewpointe Archive Services, a …

Nova Information Systems says it is acquiring Certegy Inc.'s the merchant portfolio. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The conversion of the Certegy portfolio, which consists of 14,000 merchants generating about $3 billion in annual credit and debit card volume, to Nova's platform is expected to be completed by …

Surprisingly sub-par performance by credit card issuers' Web sites may be channeling customers to more expensive alternatives for service, such as corporate call centers, reports a new study by Keynote Systems Inc. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company, which measures Web site performance in various industries, says in a summary of …

A failure by major investors to understand the business model of an independent sales organization may have prompted yesterday's offer by Gregory S. Daily, chairman and chief executive of iPayment Inc., to buy all outstanding shares of the Nashville, Tenn.-based processor. The company, which went public in March 2003, closed …

U.S. Bancorp's acquisition earlier this week of Genpass Inc., operator of MoneyPass, a surcharge-free ATM network, is expected to dramatically expand the reach of ATMs that don't levy surcharges to cardholders. Elan Financial Services, a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, already operates a network of 4,000 surcharge-free ATMs called FastBank Free, …

United Bank Card Inc., which earlier this week announced it is selling a portfolio of 15,500 merchants to Optimal Payments Corp. for $44 million, said today it will use the cash to add new departments and hire more staff to help cope with rapid growth. Jared Isaacman, founder and chief …

With card interchange rates becoming a subject that even central bankers are beginning to ponder, a long-time analyst of the electronic-transaction market has released a report arguing that overall acceptance costs are often more favorable to merchants in the U.S. than overseas and that merchants would be better off developing …

Ritz Camera Centers Inc., which last week announced it would adopt MasterCard's PayPass contactless card program chainwide, says it hopes to use the technology to hasten photo-finishing customers through the checkout process. “They're in the stores two or three time a week, and they want the service to be kind …