News

January, 2012

• 10 January

  Intuit Plants GoPayment’s Flag in Canada and Upgrades Its Card Reader

  Intuit Inc. plans to export its GoPayment service to Canada in the next few months, beating out rival Square Inc. as both companies prepare for international expansion of their smart-phone-based payment services aimed at the smallest of merchants. Intuit also is rolling out a new card reader for mobile devices, …
• 9 January

  Home Depot Is a Good Start for PayPal’s POS Ambitions, But Much Work Likely Remains

  PayPal Inc.’s pilot in five Home Depot stores, which the payments processor announced on Friday, represents the start of a major push by PayPal to the point of sale at major merchants. But allowing for a completely new payment method in a physical store, in this case one that has …
• 6 January

  Global Payments Set To Buy CyberSource’s U.S. Merchant File From Visa

    Confirming its earlier signals that it does not want to be a direct U.S. merchant acquirer, at least not yet, Visa Inc. plans to sell its portfolio of just over 9,000 U.S. e-commerce merchants to merchant processor Global Payments Inc. within the next two months. Atlanta-based Global divulged the …
• 5 January

  Acquirers, Small Merchants See More Risk-Reduction Value in PCI, Survey Shows

  The 7-year-old Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is proving its effectiveness in preventing data breaches among small merchants, according to a survey of payments-industry acquirers set to be released next week. The survey, cosponsored by ControlScan Inc., an Alpharetta, Ga.-based vendor of PCI-compliance solutions, and the Merchant Acquirers’ Committee, …
• 5 January

  Fiserv Slaps Rival FIS with a Lawsuit Alleging Infringement of Three Payments Patents

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• 5 January

  It Did Turn Out To Be a Very Merry Christmas Online for Merchant Processors

  The strong increases in online payment transactions noticed by merchant acquirers and others in November continued through the entire holiday shopping season, according to recently released data. Leading e-commerce acquirer Chase Paymentech reported on Thursday that its Cyber Holiday Pulse Index recorded nearly 360 million transactions valued at approximately $14.5 …
• 4 January

  PayPal Boss Thompson Decamps for Yahoo Just As Key POS Strategy Unfolds

  PayPal Inc. on Wednesday lost its top executive just as the e-commerce processing giant has embarked on an ambitious strategy to handle transactions for brick-and-mortar stores. The departure of Scott Thompson, who has been PayPal’s president since 2008, also represents the second loss of a key executive at PayPal in …

December, 2011

• 30 December

  Protests Force Verizon Wireless To Drop Its Planned $2 Payment Fee

  n Bowing to an outcry of opposition, telecommunications giant Verizon Wireless cancelled a controversial $2 fee for one-time telephone and online payments just one day after announcing it. The carrier’s reversal came less than two months after Bank of America Corp. cancelled its enormously unpopular plan to charge some customers …
• 28 December

  New DoJ Interpretation Could Lead to State-by-State Online Betting, Despite UIGEA

  A 5-year-old law that bans U.S. banks and processors from handling online-gambling transactions won’t stand in the way of a U.S. Justice Department opinion released last week that appears to put the federal government's imprimatur on intrastate online betting. The DoJ on Dec. 23 released a 13-page memorandum giving states …
• 22 December

  Free-Equipment Pioneer United Bank Card Hints at Enhancements to Come

  Despite criticism that free point-of-sale terminals for card-accepting merchants undercut independent sales organizations’ profitability, the company that started the trend back in 2004 remains staunchly committed to the strategy. The investment in hardware is more than returned in reduced attrition, says Jared Isaacman, chief executive of United Bank Card Inc. …