News

October, 2013

• 21 October

  IP Consolidator Unwired Planet Slaps Square with Suit Alleging Patent Infringement

  Intellectual-property company Unwired Planet Inc. is suing Square Inc. alleging Square’s mobile-payments technologies infringe on three of its patents, Unwired Planet announced Monday. The suit asserts that mobile point-of-sale provider Square infringes on patents for wireless transactions and location-based services as used in Square Wallet, and location-based notifications as used …
• 16 October

  Merchants Cite “Don’t Know” as the Most Common Acquirer Name: Survey

    Ideally, merchants that use payment card acceptance services would know which merchant acquirers they work with. But in a recent report from research firm Aite Group LLC, the most common response when merchants were asked to name their acquirers was “Don’t know.” Of the 491 U.S. merchants surveyed for …
• 16 October

  PayPal Continues to Grow, Topping $1.6 Billion in Q3 Revenue

    PayPal Inc., the financial services arm of marketplace eBay Inc., continues to work on expanding PayPal acceptance beyond e-commerce, and its decision last month to buy Braintree Payment Solutions LLC for $800 million is one part of that effort, eBay executives said Wednesday. EBay has been expanding the number …
• 16 October

  Citing Shady ISO Practices, Heartland’s Carr Predicts Further Crackdowns by the FTC

  Merchant processors can expect federal regulators to continue cracking down on their industry, Robert O. Carr, chief executive of Heartland Payment Systems Inc., predicted in a speech Wednesday at an acquiring-industry conference. The reason for stepped-up federal oversight, Carr said, is that independent sales organizations haven’t policed themselves effectively. He …
• 15 October

  Square Gets Into the Person-to-Person Payments Arena With its New Square Cash

  By Jim Daly In a move that apparently signals its intention to become a more diversified financial-services provider, Square Inc. on Tuesday introduced a person-to-person payments service called Square Cash. The service, which works through email or mobile apps, has no fees for either the sender or recipient and only …
• 15 October

  Dwolla Ends Support for Virtual Currency Bitcoin

  By Kevin Woodward Person-to-person and mobile payments company Dwolla Corp. is ending support for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies effective Oct. 28, Dwolla announced on Friday. Less than 0.1% of Dwolla’s merchants use virtual currencies, Des Moines, Iowa-based Dwolla says in a statement. “Dwolla has notified the few affected merchants …
• 15 October

  Decoupled Debit Scheme Pulls Up at the VeriFone Fuel Pump

  Consumers this fall will be able to use their smart phones to pay for fuel at certain gas stations that use VeriFone Systems Inc. technology and offer National Payment Card Association’s mobile-payment app, VeriFone announced Monday. Point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone says convenience store and gas station operators using its Smart …
• 10 October

  New Technology Entrants Capture ISO and Acquirer Attention at Regional Conference

    Recurring revenue from transaction-processing fees has been a staple of independent sales organizations and acquirers for decades. But amid a host of new competitors, the payment-processing industry finds itself wondering what its next steps may be. ISOs are squeezed on one side by large players, like First Data Corp. …
• 10 October

  Clover Looks to App Market, First Data’s Backing to Set It Apart in Crowded Tablet Field

  Clover Network Inc., which on Wednesday burst into a crowded market for tablet-based point-of-sale systems, is betting that merchants would like to choose their apps for customer service and checkout in the same way they can load apps on their smart phones. With the new Clover Station, merchants can download …
• 9 October

  New York Case Raises Questions About the Future of States’ Bans on Credit Card Surcharges

  By Jim Daly An injunction that puts New York State’s ban on merchants’ credit card surcharges on hold could be a prelude to a bigger legal assault on states’ surcharge restrictions. If pro-surcharging merchants prevail, their actions could add some oomph to a provision in the pending settlement of unrelated …