USA Technologies Inc. on Friday announced it had secured a three-year agreement with Visa Inc. that will allow the supplier of payments technology for vending machines to continue receiving favorable small-ticket interchange pricing from the network. In the announcement, contained in a brief regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange …

Best known for providing wireless card payments for vending machines and unattended locations such as coin laundries, USA Technologies Inc. (USAT) is challenging Square Inc. and other mobile-payments providers in a move to get more mileage out of its specialty processing system. After introducing its mobile services last year, the …

Though it has attracted fervent enthusiasts, Bitcoin in the end offers less than meets the eye, says Eric Grover. For an electronic-payment system, the lack of central accountability is a flaw, not a feature. Eric Grover is principal at Intrepid Ventures, Minden, Nev. Reach him at eric.grover@intrepidventures.com. Bitcoin mania is …

Target Corp. on Monday held a conference call with state attorneys general and said malware was involved in its data breach that compromised up to 40 million credit and debit card accounts. The new developments follow the discount-store chain’s disclosure Thursday of a breach in the point-of-sale system for its …

Love your local vending machine and it’ll love you back. That’s the message from USA Technologies Inc. (USAT), operator of a wireless network of card-accepting vending machines. USAT this week unveiled a loyalty program called “More” centered around a proprietary, reloadable stored-value card that machine owners and operators can offer …

Lauri Giesen Many in the payments industry fault value-added resellers for lax data security, an accusation VARs resent. What’s the real story, and how are VARs working to make their products more secure? Most retailers and their merchant acquirers and third-party processors take careful measures to assure that fraudsters can’t …

Fewer than two months after a competitor announced a similar deal, wireless payments provider Apriva Inc. this week reported that it would continue offering pre-Durbin Amendment discounted acceptance pricing on Visa cards to vending-machine operators. Debit card interchange in late 2011 became a major concern for vending-machine operators and other …

The carrier-backed Isis mobile-payment service debuted in a low-key launch Monday in Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City with almost 1,000 merchant locations participating and its near-field communication (NFC) system workable on nine smart-phone models. Digital Transactions News counted 493 merchant locations in the Salt Lake area and 470 in Austin, for …

The new mobile-payments network being developed by retailers went public on Wednesday with its name, Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, and the identities of 15 initial merchant-investors. But, five months after merchants first revealed plans to build an alternative to the major card networks as mobile payments take hold in …

Lauri Giesen When the Durbin rate cap on debit took effect, it was supposed to give merchants a big break on acceptance costs. But sellers of items like soda and bus fares have seen their costs balloon, and that’s hurting emerging-payments markets. Lower costs are what most retailers should have …