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In the largest agreement so far for deployment of vending machines accepting mag-stripe and contactless cards, USA Technologies Inc. has been awarded a three-year contract that includes supplying card readers for up to 7,500 machines operated by Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., the world's biggest Coke distributor, in cities across the country. …
Read More »Retailers Still Have Long Way to Go on PCI, VeriFone Chief Says
San Jose, Calif.-based point-of-sale terminal developer VeriFone Holdings Inc.'s outspoken chief executive, Douglas G. Bergeron, sought in an analysts' conference call Tuesday to make hay out of the current concern about cardholder data security stemming from recent breaches at retailers such as TJX Cos. (Digital Transactions News, March 29). Older …
Read More »MPI Case May Not Be the Last ISO Action, FTC Says
A recent case filed by the Federal Trade Commission against an independent sales organization in Beaverton, Ore., may not be the last such action the federal regulator will bring. In April, the agency sued Merchant Processing Inc. in federal court, alleging the ISO duped merchants by promising to buy out …
Read More »End of 50-Day Go-Shop” Period Leaves KKR As Sole First Data Suitor”
The proposed $29 billion buy-out of leading payment processor First Data Corp. by private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. cleared another hurdle on Tuesday when First Data reported that its 50-day “go-shop” period had ended without netting any competing bids.n n In announcing the buyout in early April, First …
Read More »Expert: Banks Should Mine Data Troves to Build Merchant Loyalty
Consumers are more loyal to the form of payment they prefer than they are to any particular retail brand, a situation that could work to the benefit of card issuers and processors but also merchants, a retail consultant says. In a survey cited by Gary Charboneau, president of Wakefield, R.I.-based …
Read More »Eye on Private Equity: Deals for Alliance Data And TransFirst
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. …
Read More »Retailers Get Ready To Roll Out FDC’s New Loyalty Platform
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 & …
Read More »Credit Card Veteran Saunders Says He’s Hip to Electronic Payments
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. …
Read More »Soaring Debit Traffic Helps Propel Revenue And Profit at MasterCard
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 …
Read More »Some PCI Progress, But Visa Sends a List of Non-Compliant Software
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% …
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