News

October, 2005

• 5 October

  Amazon.com Could Start Accepting WEB ACH Payments This Month

  Internet retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. will likely begin accepting payments cleared through the automated clearing house from at least a portion of its customer base, possibly by the end of this month, says a source familiar with the matter. This source, who asked to remain anonymous, says the move would …
• 5 October

  JPMorgan, FDC Agree on Long-Awaited Paymentech-CMS Combo

  JPMorgan Chase & Co. and First Data Corp. have come to terms on the long-awaited merger of acquiring-service providers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. in a deal that will create a behemoth processor handling 13.1 billion electronic transactions annually. According to a news release distributed this afternoon by …
• 4 October

  Publix Joins Retailers Suing Visa, MasterCard over Interchange

  The ranks of major retailers suing the bank card networks over interchange swelled by one today when Publix Super Markets Inc. announced it had filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Visa USA and MasterCard International. The Lakeland, Fla.-based grocery chain's suit alleges the practice of setting interchange by the two …
• 3 October

  Metavante Makes Government Move with Deal for Link2Gov

  Metavante Corp., which through acquisitions has been steadily building a major franchise in processing electronic transactions for multiple constituencies across card, check, and automated clearing-house channels, today announced it is buying Link2Gov Corp., a 10-year-old processor of payments for governmental agencies, utilities, and health-care entities on the Internet and at …

September, 2005

• 30 September

  Wal-Mart Says POP a Success, but Uncertainty from Fee Holds It Back

  Contrary to the misgivings of some retailers regarding the automated clearing house's point-of-purchase electronic check application, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says its experience with POP has been largely positive. At the same time, however, a new fee proposed by NACHA, the rules-setting organization for the ACH, and intended to discourage unauthorized …
• 30 September

  One Year After Check 21, Image Exchange Still Relies Heavily on IRDs

  Nearly a year after the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21) took effect, sparking a steady build-up in check-image exchange volume, more exchanges are being settled on paper documents than some observers expected. The reason is that many paying banks are unprepared to settle on images and …
• 29 September

  In Wake of CyberSource Deal, Visa Postpones CardSystems Ban

  Visa U.S.A. reportedly has postponed for three months its plan to ban from its network transactions from troubled merchant processor CardSystems Solutions Inc. in order to facilitate the sale of CardSystems' assets to CyberSource Corp. In the wake of a massive security breach at Atlanta-based CardSystems in May that compromised …
• 28 September

  New Research Unveils Big Challenges for Mobile Content Market

  Separate reports released this week show that the market for mobile content?everything from games to ring tones to video clips and beyond?may have farther to go than previously supposed by those who see the market as a nascent source of micropayments. Also, other research reveals content marketers may have to …
• 27 September

  ‘Aggressive’ About Image Exchange, National City Watches Volume Climb

  A $36-million in image-exchange technology is beginning to bear fruit for National City Corp. The Cleveland-based bank began trading digital check images in April on a network operated by SVPCO and has seen volume climb from a few hundred daily files to the current rate ranging from 10,000 to 70,000, …
• 26 September

  Another Interchange Suit Seeks Sweeping Reform of Fee-Setting Mechanism

  The legal battle over the bank card associations' interchange pricing arrangements, already red-hot, got even hotter today when four retail trade associations slapped Visa U.S.A., MasterCard International, and several major banks with a class-action antitrust suit. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New …