News

August, 2013

• 26 August

  Forgotten Fed Report Shows Debit Interchange Could Be in for a Real Haircut

  Findings from an overlooked Federal Reserve Board report from last March portend that the possible cuts in debit card interchange as a result of a major court decision last month could be even bigger than many observers initially thought. In the report, the Fed said that authorization, clearing, and settlement …
• 22 August

  USA Technologies Launches a Prepaid Loyalty Program for Vending Machines

  Love your local vending machine and it’ll love you back. That’s the message from USA Technologies Inc. (USAT), operator of a wireless network of card-accepting vending machines. USAT this week unveiled a loyalty program called “More” centered around a proprietary, reloadable stored-value card that machine owners and operators can offer …
• 22 August

  Mercury Leverages Developers To Sell PayPal Wallet to Brick-And-Mortar Merchants

  PayPal Inc.’s ambitious plan to achieve what its parent company’s chief executive calls “ubiquity” in in-store acceptance took a key step forward this week when news emerged that Mercury Payment Systems has become the first independent sales organization to market PayPal’s mobile wallet to small brick-and-mortar merchants. Durango, Colo.-based Mercury, …
• 21 August

  The Fed Will Appeal Judge’s Decision To Overturn Its Durbin-Amendment Rule

  By Jim Daly The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it would appeal the July 31 decision by a federal judge overturning the board’s rule implementing the Durbin Amendment, the section of 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act that regulates debit cards. The news came from Scott Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, at a …
• 21 August

  Bitcoin ATM Maker Hopes Machine Will Bring Bitcoin to the Masses

  Zach Harvey says it’s too hard to get Bitcoins, so next month his new company will start shipping its first machines intended to let ordinary consumers exchange cash for the controversial digital currency. The company, Lamassu Inc., is billing the tabletop device as “the world’s first Bitcoin ATM” and says …
• 16 August

  Amazon Payments ‘Lite’ Debuts To Appeal to Online Sellers Looking for Easier Integration

  Looking to attract more small businesses that just want to process online payments, e-commerce kingpin Amazon.com Inc. is rolling out a new, streamlined version of its 6-year-old Amazon Payments service. The new platform, which includes a simplified application programming interface, front-end widgets, and a testing “sandbox,” minimizes integration time by …
• 15 August

  The PCI Council Wants To Get into Your Head with Its Pending Update to Security Standards

  By Jim Daly The coming update to the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) will include new guidelines about physically protecting credit and debit card terminals, when third-party vendors share security responsibilities with merchants, protecting card data in a computer system’s short-term memory, and strengthening passwords, among others. The PCI …
• 14 August

  Groupon Crashes Traditional ISO Business with a Move into POS Terminals

  The acquiring business, already fraught with rivalry, became even more competitive on Wednesday with an announcement from daily-deals giant Groupon Inc. that it will supply traditional point of sale terminals to merchants as part of a new initiative under its payments division. The Chicago-based company, which last year jumped into …
• 14 August

  Durbin Judge May Allow Merchant Reimbursement; More Retailers Sue over Interchange

  A judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday gave the Federal Reserve Board a week to indicate its position about a possible interim rule for implementing the Durbin Amendment, the part of 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act that regulates debit cards, after ruling late last month that the Fed’s current regulations do not …
• 13 August

  Shopify Launches Payments Service To Ease Online Sales for Small Sellers

  Shopify Inc. hopes to lure small online sellers by the thousands to its e-commerce platform by making the typically vexatious business of taking payments as easy as possible. On Monday, the Ottawa-based company announced Shopify Payments, a service that lets Web merchants sign up to accept a broad range of …