News

November, 2009

• 19 November

  Reducing Interchange Would ‘Pose Challenges,’ the GAO Says

  If merchants on the one side and bank card issuers and payment card networks on the other were looking for endorsements of their opposing positions about interchange, they didn't get them Thursday when the Government Accountability Office issued a long-awaited report about the controversial fee. The GAO, the investigative arm …
• 19 November

  Merchant Attrition Is Top Challenge As Acquirers Look Ahead to 2010

  Coming off a tough year in 2009, independent sales organizations and other acquirers rank merchant attrition and shrinking margins as their top challenges as they look ahead to next year. Acquirers also rank mobile-related products as their biggest emerging market for next year, while they plan to invest more in …
• 18 November

  AmEx To Buy Revolution Money in an Alternative-Payment Play

  American Express Co. is acquiring Revolution Money Inc. for $300 million in a move the two companies say will help the travel-and-entertainment card giant move into next-generation electronic payments while providing a major boost for Revolution's nascent Internet-based payments platform. The deal enhances AmEx's position in the alternative-payments niche, but …
• 17 November

  How ISOs Are Tackling the Knotty Issue of Level 4 PCI Compliance

  Bringing small merchants into compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, is no easy task, according to independent sales organization executives that have started PCI programs for so-called Level 4 merchants. “You call up Billy's Pizza and ask him about his firewall, and he's not going to …
• 16 November

  First Data Works with Accertify to Democratize Fraud Screening

  First Data Corp. has begun integrating fraud-screening software from an outside vendor that it will offer on a per-transaction basis to its e-commerce merchants. The move brings the software, called Interceptas, within reach of tens of thousands of small online sellers at a time when online fraud is expected to …
• 13 November

  Visa Warns of Suspect Web Marketers, Requires More ISO Disclosure

  Visa Inc. is paying more attention to a broad category of merchants it dubs Internet direct marketers, according to a Visa security executive who spoke on Thursday to independent sales organization executives. These marketers bear many similarities to the often-suspect sellers of the 1980s and '90s who peddled their wares …
• 12 November

  NCR’s Pilot for Movie-Download Kiosks Opens New Transaction Market

  A new source of potential payment card transaction volume opened up this week when ATM and kiosk manufacturer NCR Corp. and software provider MOD Systems Inc. announced a pilot in which consumers can download digital movies and TV shows from kiosks. Just as DVDs displaced VHS tapes for movie rentals, …
• 11 November

  RBS WorldPay Indictment Outlines Sophisticated Hacker Coordination

  An indictment handed down on Tuesday against a gang of hackers in the RBS WorldPay Inc. case sheds more light on the sophistication and intricate coordination with which criminal groups worldwide are attacking payment processors, particularly those in the U.S. More than a year after cybercriminals broke into the computer …
• 11 November

  With Four Suits Pending, the VeriFone-Heartland Feud Escalates

  The bare-knuckled fight between leading U.S. point-of-sale terminal manufacturer VeriFone Holdings Inc. and the big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. keeps on escalating, with four lawsuits in three courts now pending. Both companies continue to crank out press releases, letters from their chief executives, and other public-relations missives that …
• 10 November

  A Battle for Deposits Helps Fuel Bank Interest in P2P Payments

  Mercantile Bank of Michigan has an answer for observers who want to know why financial institutions are starting to show an interest in person-to-person payments. It comes down to competition for deposits, says John Schulte, senior vice president and chief information officer at the bank, which will introduce a commercial …