Peter Lucas The sluggish progress of near-field communication in payments has TSMs looking to extend their services to cloud-based wallets and beyond. Consider the plight of the trusted service manager. Its fate is closely tied to mobile payments that use a form of short-range, interactive radio-wave exchange called near-field communication …

A common solution has been found that will ease EMV migration and permit compliance with the Durbin Amendment, but all networks must support the solution to realize its full benefits, says Terry Dooley. The key to an easier, more affordable, and less complex solution for EMV in the United States …

  ATM owners and operators are thrilled about the new opportunities deposit automation and mobile devices are creating for their industry. They’re not so thrilled about the major card networks, according to survey findings released Tuesday by the ATM Industry Association, an international trade group of ATM independent sales organizations, …

The move will allow Chirpify members to pay merchants and each other on the Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram social networks with American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa cards or with ACH transfers. It also propels the fledgling Portland, Ore.-based company further into the fast-growing world of social commerce, where companies …

Why Is First Data Dissing PayPal POS? Discover Financial Services has recruited 50 merchant acquirers to bring acceptance of leading online payment system PayPal to more than 2 million physical merchant locations by year’s end. Still holding out, at least as late as late May, was No. 1 merchant processor …

Elizabeth Whalen Merchants focus most of their attention on interchange when they think of card-acceptance costs, but now network fees and related charges are in the spotlight. Are such charges an expression of oligopolistic power? When MasterCard Inc.’s new digital-wallet fee takes effect this month, it will join a growing …

Linda Punch With law enforcement’s spotlight on Bitcoin and other digital currencies, a startup called BitMint hopes its approach will inject much-needed trust into the business. Developers of digital currencies are struggling to find the right mix of features to win over a mass market. One of the latest efforts …

Peter Lucas The availability of NFC-enabled smart phones is finally ramping up in the U.S. But handset makers are promoting the snazzy other stuff that NFC delivers, not payments. For years, champions of mobile wallets based on near-field communication (NFC) technology have evangelized how their applications will revolutionize the way …

  IP Commerce Inc., a 9-year-old Denver-based company that provides platforms for independent software vendors (ISVs) and other payments developers, will discontinue its front-end payment-processing service effective June 30, according to a notice on the home page of the company’s Web site. The company began notifying clients earlier this month, …

Lauri Giesen The early battles in the debit-network war triggered by the Durbin Amendment took a big toll on Visa’s Interlink brand, but now Visa has converted an obscure program into a powerful weapon. How are the EFT networks responding? Before April 2012, making a decision about which network over …