Transaction Processing

  Former National Processing Co. chief executive Tom Wimsett, now head of consulting firm Wimsett & Co. LLC, has teamed up with private-equity firm Thompson Street Capital Partners to buy EchoSat Communication, a payment-gateway company. EchoSat, based in Lexington, Ky., targets petroleum marketers and convenience stores. According to EchoSat’s Web …

Green Dot Corp.’s stock fell 8% Tuesday morning after the prepaid card services provider reported Monday that it had extended its agreement with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to issue and manage the Walmart MoneyCard only until Dec. 31, 2015. In the view of investors, the short extension of a five-year agreement …

Americans will spend nearly half a trillion dollars on e-commerce in 2018, with 70% of the U.S. population making online purchases, but e-commerce still will not account for even 9% of total retail sales, according to a new global forecast from research firm eMarketer Inc. In contrast, e-commerce will capture …

Since 2012, investors have poured $407 million into Bitcoin startups, with three-quarters of that sum flowing into the cryptocurrency just this year, according to figures compiled by CoinDesk, a Bitcoin newsletter. But now at least one expert is expressing doubts that these investors will see much of a return—if any—on …

MasterCard Inc. opened up its payment network to third-party software developers in 2012 and since then has participated in a number of regional “hackathons” in which developers create applications that link to MasterCard network services. Now MasterCard is expanding its footprint in the developer space by sponsoring what it calls …

  Fraud-prevention efforts typically intensify during the holiday-shopping season, but many marketers don’t know what those efforts cost them, finds a survey from 41st Parameter, a data-technology company owned by Experian plc. In a survey of 250 marketers, 60% said they were unsure about the cost of fraud prevention to …

Investors in Digital River Inc.’s stock reacted with exultation Wednesday morning when the gateway and e-commerce services provider disclosed that Microsoft Corp., its biggest customer, had renewed an agreement under which Digital River hosts the Microsoft Store online site. Not only has Digital River retained a client that accounts for …

NCR Corp. has added mobile payment and marketing provider LevelUp as an option for merchants using NCR Silver, NCR’s tablet-based point-of-sale system, NCR announced this week. Duluth, Ga.-based NCR says consumers can pay with LevelUp once merchants activate it as a payment option in NCR Silver. NCR Silver is a …

  Merchants using integrated point-of-sale systems and that process payments with First Data Corp. have a new data-security option if they use POS terminals made by VeriFone Systems Inc., which goes by Verifone. Atlanta-based First Data is now selling Verifone’s Secure Commerce Architecture service, which eliminates the flow of consumer payment …

A U.S. House of Representatives committee released a report this week blasting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for its role in Operation Choke Point, a federal-government effort to deny payment-processing services to merchants intent on defrauding consumers. The report is one more nail in what appears to be a coffin …