Credit Cards

Private-equity financing continued to make itself felt this week in the transaction-processing business, with Blackstone Capital Partners VLP's $7.8 billion bid for Alliance Data Systems Corp. and GTCR Golder Rauner LLC's decision to sell TransFirst LLC to an even bigger investment house, Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe, for $683 million. …

With an eye on increasing customer traffic but also on lowering payment-card acceptance costs, several retailers are readying PIN-based loyalty programs built on processor First Data Corp.'s new ConnectPay platform that lets customers pay without presenting a card or writing a check. ConnectPay's pilot retailer is Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & …

Visa International Inc. on Tuesday reported that it has named Joseph W. Saunders, the card-industry veteran it selected as interim leader of Visa Inc. in February, as the entity's permanent chairman and chief executive officer as it prepares to unify its far-flung regional organizations and become a publicly held company. …

Surging U.S. debit card traffic is helping to propel revenues and profits for MasterCard Inc. as the Purchase, N.Y.-based network marks its first full year as a publicly held company. Point-of-sale debit card activity for the company hit 1.5 billion transactions in the first quarter, up fully 48% over the …

Amid highly publicized data breaches at major chains like TJX Cos. Inc. and Stop & Shop Supermarket Cos., large merchants are making progress in achieving compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI), though nearly two-thirds of them have still not been certified as meeting the standard. Some 35% …

With its first top executive in place, an industry consortium formed last year to promote the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is getting set to elect a board of advisors, launch educational programs for merchants, and conduct a meeting aimed at updating the security rules. The announcements come in …

In a terse announcement released on Thursday, Visa USA said its overall effective interchange rate for the coming year will be 1.77%, up 0.6% from the 2006 systemwide rate. Without giving further details about its new rates, Visa said it will post a rate card laying out its entire schedule …

The startling size of the TJX Cos. Inc. data breach–at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards compromised–has some electronic-payments experts wondering whether the card networks will ultimately succeed in winning merchant compliance with their data-security rules. “If a major U.S. retailer cannot have its house in order, how can …

Recent cases of card-data theft from retailers?and the publicity surrounding them?are apparently generating opportunity for startup security-software companies. “More and more retailers are looking for ways to prevent breaches,” says Mark Buczynski, vice president of marketing at BitArmor Systems Inc., a 4-year-old, Pittsburgh-based company that markets encryption software it has …

Broadening merchant acceptance and negotiating the shoals of merchant pricing will be key parts of Discover Financial Services LLC's strategy to survive and grow once parent company Morgan Stanley spins off the No. 4 payments network. Morgan Stanley, a New York City-based investment bank, late on Friday filed a document …