News

March, 2009

• 24 March

  Bill Me Later (And Thus eBay) Enters Tax Payments Via Link2Gov

  In another example of tax payments going electronic, processor Metavante Corp.'s Link2Gov subsidiary has added Bill Me Later as an option that consumers and businesses can use to pay federal taxes. Assuming all goes as planned, the deal announced on Tuesday should bring more transaction volume to Metavante, the payment …
• 24 March

  Heartland Gets Hedge-Fund Investment And Warns Rival Processors

  After weeks of bad tidings, there is some positive news for Heartland Payment Systems Inc., the Princeton, N.J.-based merchant acquirer struggling to recover from a data breach late last year. Last week, SAC Capital Partners, a high-profile hedge fund known for its investment savvy, bought 767,300 shares, or about 2%, …
• 23 March

  Pulse Becomes Third EFT Network to Agree to Test Online PIN Debit

  The Pulse electronic funds transfer network on Monday announced it will test transactions in which consumers use PIN debit cards to pay online merchants. The Houston-based network is the third EFT system to agree to run such a pilot using technology from Acculynk Inc., an Atlanta-based software company. The Accel/Exchange …
• 18 March

  With Antonini’s Abrupt Departure, Cardtronics Looks for a New Boss

  Cardtronics Inc. chief executive Jack M. Antonini has left the company, the big non-bank ATM network operator announced on Wednesday. The company didn't give a reason for the sudden departure of Antonini, who has been its top officer since 2003, though a short press release indicated its board of directors …
• 17 March

  To Cut Fraud Losses, Don’t Wait for Chargebacks, Apple Says

  Online merchants shouldn't wait for chargebacks to indicate a problem with fraudulent orders. Instead, they should pay attention to other indicators, such as the volume of canceled orders, to anticipate whether a wave of chargebacks is about to hit. That's the argument Dave Moriarty, director of data mining at Apple …
• 17 March

  Higher Fees Could be Rainmakers for the Bank Card Networks

  More information is trickling out about new transaction fees planned by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. While the main ones are slightly under 2 cents per affected transaction, when applied to the vast stream of bank card purchases they could produce more than $600 million in new revenues for the …
• 17 March

  Breach-Related Woes Continue to Pile up for Beleaguered Heartland

  The breach-related troubles just keep piling on for merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc., according to the acquirer's annual report filed on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In the filing, Heartland revealed the data breach it sustained last year is under investigation not only by the U.S. …
• 16 March

  While Google Checkout Reprices, eBay Eyes Big Growth for PayPal

  Announcements last week from two of the major online payment systems, PayPal Inc. and Google Inc.'s Google Checkout, show the two are taking differing roads: PayPal is getting ready for a big growth spurt, while Google Checkout is changing its longstanding pricing plan with tiered rates that amount to price …
• 14 March

  Visa Acts Against Heartland, RBS?But Some Say It’s Not Enough

  Visa Inc. has kicked breached merchant acquirers Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and RBS WorldPay Inc. off of its list of processors compliant with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI. That action sent the acquirers to a netherworld known as probation and triggered a debate in the payments industry …
• 11 March

  Reload Competition Heats up with Visa’s MoneyGram Deal

  Visa Inc. will quintuple the size of its Visa ReadyLink prepaid card reload network when the big money-transfer firm MoneyGram International Inc. enables its 40,000 U.S. locations to add funds to prepaid cards under a deal Visa announced Tuesday. The MoneyGram locations will make Visa's reload network nearly as big …