Transaction Processing

A new data element is getting a lot of discussion in merchant-acquiring and mobile-payments circles. It’s the so-called Payment Account Reference, or PAR, and it’s meant to associate all the payment tokens linked to a single credit or debit card primary account number, or PAN. But implementing PAR could be …

Editor’s note: Read the latest by clicking here. A spate of media reports that Visa Inc. owns nearly 10% of Square Inc. are wrong and are based on a misreading of a filing Visa made Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a person familiar with the matter …

It was all over the financial press Friday morning that Visa Inc. owned nearly 10% of merchant processor Square Inc. But it turns out that Visa’s real stake is a tad lower—try less than 2%. The news stories, which started with a Reuters report out of India, were based on …

While mobile wallets, near-field communication, and EMV have focused all eyes in the payments industry on the physical point of sale, some mobile-payments executives are starting to prepare for what they see as the fading away of the traditional checkout counter. Technology already exists that allows customers to order ahead …

With PayPal Holdings Inc. promoting its fast-growing Venmo peer-to-peer payments service and rumors that Apple Inc. is eyeing the business, P2P transfers are starting to take center stage in the consumer-payments business. And now a new survey indicates the service is growing in appeal to consumers for a variety of …

Leading payment processor First Data Corp. late Tuesday reported modest revenue and transaction growth in 2015’s fourth quarter, as well as better pre-tax profitability and an improved balance sheet in the wake of its October initial public offering, but investors still didn’t like what they saw. The Atlanta-based company’s stock …

With the coming of mobile payments and their attendant security issues expanding demand for so-called token service providers, the PCI Security Standards Council has issued rules intended to keep the tokenization environment safe. The Wakefield, Mass.-based PCI Council in December quietly released a 92-page document titled, “Additional Security Requirements and …

Vantiv Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. are, separately, creating new looks for their brands. Vantiv, which bought integrated-payments specialist Mercury Payment Systems LLC in 2014  for $1.65 billion, is renaming Mercury and Element Payment Services, an integrated-payments provider it purchased in 2013, as a single unit called Vantiv Integrated Payments. This …

It’s common for consumers who use a recurring service to designate a credit or debit card that the service provider can charge each month. With the automated clearing house, this is much less common. Dwolla Inc. says that’s because it’s too difficult and time-consuming for most businesses to set up …

Two leading merchant acquirers, Vantiv Inc. and Heartland Payment Systems Inc., are reporting strong transaction growth in their most recent financials. Boosted in part by its first full year of owning Mercury Payment Systems, Symmes Township, Ohio-based Vantiv on Wednesday said its Merchant Services segment processed 19 billion transactions in 2015, …