News

November, 2012

• 12 November

  Looming Holiday Season Promises Hefty Lift in Closed-Loop Prepaid Loads, Report Says

  Closed-loop gift cards can expect to see an increase of more than 5% in holiday load volume over 2011’s loads, according to a new forecast from Mercator Advisory Group Inc., which researches the prepaid card industry. Mercator predicts loads on closed-loop gift cards will hit $43.2 billion from Nov. 1 …
• 9 November

  Judge Gives Preliminary OK to the Controversial Credit Card Interchange Settlement

  To the dismay of retailers but the joy of the card networks and bank defendants, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson on Friday gave preliminary approval to the controversial settlement of credit card interchange litigation announced July 13. The National Retail Federation, the leading retail-industry trade group and an outspoken foe …
• 8 November

  ShopKeep Pushes Trend Toward a Tablet-Based POS Managed from the Cloud

  While much of the payments industry’s attention is on mobile payments, mobile technology is also starting to transform the traditional retail checkout. This week, a tablet-based point-of-sale startup called ShopKeep POS launched software to keep track of employee hours and to let restaurants modify orders on the fly. Also this …
• 8 November

  Starbucks Debuts ‘Square Lite’ in 7,000 Stores, But More Features Are Coming

  Three months after announcing their partnership, mobile-payments provider Square Inc. and coffee king Starbucks Corp. said Starbucks customers could now use the Square Wallet for purchases at 7,000 company-operated U.S. locations. The purchase process at Starbucks will be a bit different for users of the consumer-facing Square Wallet, formerly known …
• 7 November

  Holding Patents on Mobile Acceptance, a Small Firm Won’t Rule out ‘Legal Remedies’

  With a pair of U.S patents in hand, a small, Montreal-based engineering firm may have placed itself in a position to strongly influence the fast-growing market for mobile card acceptance. The patents, awarded last month to AnywhereCommerce, cover payments via a dongle connected to a mobile device’s audio jack, a …
• 6 November

  First Data: Planned Settlement Would Let the Card Networks ‘Buy a License to Monopolize’

  With a hearing coming up on Friday, objections to the proposed credit card interchange settlement are piling up in Brooklyn, N.Y., faster than debris from Superstorm Sandy. In addition to a number of retailers and their trade groups, those on record against the controversial plan forged by lawyers for the …
• 5 November

  Small Merchants Show No Improvement in Card-Data Security, Survey Says

  For years, the payments industry has hoped to see improvement in card-data security among small merchants in the U.S. But, according to a survey released last week, it’s not happening. Indeed, in some important measures, there has been backsliding on security among the nation’s smallest retailers. A little more than …
• 5 November

  What’s in Google’s Wallet? Possibly a Discover Card

  Discover Financial Services is about to team up with Google Inc. to bring the Google Wallet to the physical point of sale with a Discover-branded plastic card, according to the latest rumor sweeping Silicon Valley. Discover recently began issuing cards for PayPal Inc., so if the Google rumor proves true, …
• 1 November

  Visa Reports Growth in Credit, Less Bleeding in Debit, Progress for Its V.me Wallet

  Visa Inc. on Wednesday reported brisk growth in its credit business and a stabilizing debit market while touting progress for its new digital wallet, V.me. Overall, the results released for Visa’s fourth quarter show the world’s biggest payments network is wising up about how to cope with a new, more …

October, 2012

• 31 October

  Acquiring Giant Vantiv Agrees to Buy Litle & Co. for $361 Million

  In a move that will greatly expand its business in card-not-present transaction processing, merchant processor Vantiv Inc. announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Lowell, Mass.-based Litle & Co. for $361 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close later this year and will result in 11-year-old …