As transaction processors add services to their basic product, they put increasing pressure on gateway providers to differentiate themselves. One of the most ambitious strategies for differentiation is being pursued by Authorize.net Inc., acquired this spring for $82 million by Lightbridge Inc., a Burlington, Mass.-based provider of billing and fraud-management …

Arthur Blank & Co. Inc., a Boston-based maker of plastic payment and loyalty cards, is getting into the market for cards equipped with radio-frequency-identification technology, with ambitions particularly for cards supporting loyalty programs and payments in the quick-service retail market. “We as a company are very bullish [on RFID],” says …

A payment system based on toll-road transponders in Dallas will expand later this year beyond the five McDonald's restaurants that have been part of the radio-frequency identification (RFID) pilot since its inception two years ago. Hummelstown, Pa.-based TransCore, which installs RFID-based toll-road systems around the world, says it will add …

Peppercoin Inc., a micropayments processor in Waltham, Mass., sees a potential market for transactions of small and very small values reaching into the trillions of dollars, embracing both the online and point-of-sale markets. To tap that potential, the new company is moving toward a rollout, planned for mid-summer, of a …

American Express Co. this Friday will begin adding more merchants in lower Manhattan in its test of radio-wave technology for payment transactions. Over the next several weeks, three quick-service restaurants near the card company's headquarters will begin accepting the card company's experimental ExpressPay RIFD keyfobs, which communicate with conventional card …

Authorize.net Inc., which serves as a payments gateway for 91,000 mostly mid-size and small Web-based merchants, is making a major play for the brick-and-mortar point of sale. With the backing of its new owner, Burlington, Mass.-based Lightbridge Inc., Authorize.net is revving up its marketing and re-seller efforts to expand rapidly …

Although the decision by fast-food king McDonald's Corp. to shut down its test of ExxonMobil Corp.'s Speedpass contactless payment product seems to be a setback for the technology, not all observers agree. Indeed, some are convinced transactions based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) still have a bright future at high-throughput locations–maybe …

Visa USA Inc.'s newly announced interchange pricing for its signature-based, or offline, debit cards are only the starting point for what will be many rounds of negotiations with larger regional and national retailers, say industry observers. Meanwhile, despite the new rate announcement from Visa, MasterCard International Inc. says it is …

MasterCard is evaluating the next step for its contactless payment program following the conclusion of its PayPass test using a chip-based card in Orlando and as it nears the conclusion of a test involving the use of cell phones as a payment device in Dallas. The card company is expected …

A Web-based payments transaction processing program has been growing at about 400% annually since it branched out beyond the hospitality industry. When Las Vegas-based Shift4 Corp. developed its $$$ on the Net system for nearby resorts five years ago, the system was designed to allow the hotel, gift shops, casinos, …