Transaction Processing

The Government Accountability Office's report about interchange came out on Thursday, and every group either for or against the controversial transaction fee has put its own spin on the findings since then. That raises the question of whether Congress will actually take action on three pending interchange bills. Forecasting Congressional …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

In a move that could change the way consumers shop and pay on the Web, a startup called Payvment is marketing a free shopping cart that lets online shoppers accumulate merchandise from a variety of Web sites?including Facebook?and then pay for all of it with a single checkout. “We call …

Electronic person-to-person payments have been around this entire decade, but they're still largely the domain of specialists such as PayPal Inc. and a host of tech companies. But leading bank processors are getting into the P2P act, and if they're successful they could spur greater usage from the consumer mainstream …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is accusing VeriFone Holdings Inc. of “tampering” with Heartland customers after the San Jose, Calif.-based terminal company said it will terminate its support relationships with Heartland customers, effective Dec. 31. VeriFone says it will offer complete alternative support at no cost to affected merchants. Heartland merchants …

Hoping to inspire a burst of innovation beyond what it could expect to deliver within its own research-and-development budget, PayPal Inc. on Tuesday officially turned its global payment engine over to software developers with an array of new application programming interfaces (APIs). With the unveiling of the APIs, which took …

Cynergy Data LLC, the big independent sales organization that filed for bankruptcy Sept. 1, got a second lease on life last week when the sale of its assets to The ComVest Group, a private-equity firm with holdings in other payment processors, closed. ComVest paid $81 million for Long Island City, …