Pricing

U.S. Bancorp's acquisition earlier this week of Genpass Inc., operator of MoneyPass, a surcharge-free ATM network, is expected to dramatically expand the reach of ATMs that don't levy surcharges to cardholders. Elan Financial Services, a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, already operates a network of 4,000 surcharge-free ATMs called FastBank Free, …

With card interchange rates becoming a subject that even central bankers are beginning to ponder, a long-time analyst of the electronic-transaction market has released a report arguing that overall acceptance costs are often more favorable to merchants in the U.S. than overseas and that merchants would be better off developing …

A Washington, D.C.-based organization formed early this year by retail-industry trade groups says it is beginning to work out a plan of attack that it hopes will lead to regulation of the fees card-accepting merchants pay issuing banks. After years of friction between banks and merchants over the subject, this …

Micopayments processor BitPass Inc., Menlo Park, Calif., is moving into uncharted territory for digital content by enabling payments for episodes of a new film being produced by a studio controlled by Daniel Myrick, best known as creator and co-producer of “The Blair Witch Project.” The so-called webisodes of “The Strand,” …

Sensing a trend within banks toward pulling together credit, debit, checking, and other electronic payments-processing operations, IBM Corp. is getting ready to push an all-purpose retail payments engine for both bank back offices and third-party transaction processors. “It's a payments hub, and it's cheaper, faster, and easier to maintain,” than …

Online merchants are interested in alternatives to credit cards for payment, but set high hurdles for alternative payment methods to overcome, including the need for authentication, for a smooth, uninterrupted customer session, and for reasonable pricing from processors that doesn't tax merchants to develop a user base for the processors. …

Mer-Tec Inc., an online transaction processor based in Lewisville, Texas, will switch on a micropayments service next week for handling online payments and rights management for digital content, with an emphasis on song and video downloads. The service, which Mer-Tec calls SecureCastle, will open with about 10 independent artists as …

With credit card fees having become one of their biggest operating expenses, airlines are turning to alternative, lower-cost payment options. The aim is to reduce the collective $1.5 billion in card-acceptance costs airlines pay annually, according to a recent study by Edgar, Dunn & Co. Houston-based Continental Airlines has moved …

A Manhattan-based startup company is bringing the concept of check guarantee to the business of processing card-not-present payments. Precharge Risk Management Solutions, founded less than two years ago, has only in the past few months been actively marketing its service but has already signed up more than 1,000 online merchants, …

MasterCard's recent decision to slash its interchange pricing for e-commerce merchants that adopt the bank card association's SecureCode authentication program should significantly improve the business case for the technology and put pressure on Visa USA to respond, industry sources say. “I can't imagine [Visa is] going to let MasterCard steal …