Lauri Giesen As EFT networks hunt for new business in the era of the Durbin Amendment, MoneyPass is expanding beyond its comfortable ATM space to link banks to point-of-sale PIN-debit services. Most of the headlines in the general press about the Durbin Amendment in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform law focused …

Eric Grover Low acceptance costs, convenience, and security aren’t enough. As this global review of would-be PayPals and Visas shows, startups need a clear path to a mass of users. With the advent of mobile payments, we read almost daily about new payments startups. And this avalanche of startups follows …

PayPal’s bold new strategy for the physical point of sale faces daunting challenges that will require the young company to accept lower margins, work with ISOs, revamp systems, and chop transaction costs, says René M. Pelegero. Unfortunately, ISOs perceive PayPal as the enemy. Thus, PayPal needs to develop, and quickly …

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday released data about banks’ debit card interchange income now that the Durbin Amendment is in effect. Not surprisingly, the numbers show that interchange for regulated card issuers plunged. The nation’s leading retailer trade group took the occasion to decry the Fed, even though merchants …

The market for card-based vending machine purchases has hit some turbulence over the past year, but new competitor Spindle Inc. says the niche still has plenty of long-term opportunities. “I’m not at this point so worried about being different as adding competition,” says Bill Clark, president of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Spindle. …

In the wake of the Durbin Amendment’s debit card price controls taking effect last fall and other new regulations, the payments industry is feeling politically battered and bruised and fearing that more fights with merchants are on the way. “Our era of self-regulation of pricing has ended,” Mary Weaver Bennett, …

Among five major financial products, only prepaid cards grew in consumer ownership last year, according to new findings from Javelin Strategy & Research. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Javelin assessed prepaid cards’ current market position and prospects through a random online survey last October of 3,210 U.S. adults, and compared many of the …

Vending machine payment-network operator USA Technologies Inc. has instituted a two-tier pricing option that gives machine owners the ability to offer discounts for cash. But the Malvern, Pa.-based company says early results show many consumers still prefer card payments even if paying by cash would save them some small change. …

A major merchant trade group on Monday fired an opening shot in what is likely to be a long, hard battle over credit card acceptance costs. The NACS, an association for convenience-store operators, released a report claiming that card discount fees in general—and especially credit card fees–are partly responsible for …

  A new certification program could offer merchant-acquiring professionals and their employers some much-needed credibility. A fundamental industry mindset might need to change for the program to succeed, however.   bY Karen Epper Hoffman   When it comes to standards for employee qualifications and knowledge, the merchant-acquiring community is very …