Secure Vault Payments, an online-payments program that lets consumers pay merchants from their checking accounts via the automated clearing house network, is catching on as a way to pay tuition and other costs at the University of Georgia, which began using the method in July in time for fall-semester tuition …

If hype augurs success, the new Square payments application for mobile merchants is off to a promising start. The product, announced this week by a San Francisco startup called Square Inc., is attracting attention not just in the payments business but in the wider business community. That's because Square's founder …

Coming off a tough year in 2009, independent sales organizations and other acquirers rank merchant attrition and shrinking margins as their top challenges as they look ahead to next year. Acquirers also rank mobile-related products as their biggest emerging market for next year, while they plan to invest more in …

American Express Co. is acquiring Revolution Money Inc. for $300 million in a move the two companies say will help the travel-and-entertainment card giant move into next-generation electronic payments while providing a major boost for Revolution's nascent Internet-based payments platform. The deal enhances AmEx's position in the alternative-payments niche, but …

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, …

PIN-debit is now live on the Web with Monday's announcement that Accel/Exchange is the first electronic funds transfer network to roll out such a service. The network, a unit of Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv Inc., is making the PaySecure system from technology provider Acculynk Inc. available to its membership base this …

U.S. payment card issuers missed out on nearly $4 billion in charge volume in 2008, including $78.7 million in interchange, because of problems cardholders had with their cards while traveling abroad, according to a new report by Aite Group LLC. The default response when travelers have a card problem is …

The first Visa-branded debit cards in Canada will be out in 2010's first quarter, Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Joseph W. Saunders reported late Tuesday. Saunders, reviewing Visa's financial report for fiscal 2009's fourth quarter, also told analysts that signs of recovery from recession are starting to appear in …

Utility companies looking to convert from paper-based billing to electronic payments are continuing to become payment card acceptors, according to the MasterCard Inc. executive who oversees the network's programs for that merchant sector. “We're very pleased with the movement towards card acceptance across utilities of all sizes,” Steve Carnevale, vice …

There's some evolution going on at Revolution Money Inc., the low-cost PIN-based credit card and electronic-payments venture. In announcing on Tuesday that Fifth Third Bancorp would be a RevolutionCard issuer, Revolution Money revealed a new focus on building its cardholder base and disclosed another $20 million venture-capital investment on top …