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. …

After bottoming out in 2010, identity fraud rose nearly 13% last year, according to new findings from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin’s findings also associate two hallmarks of the tech-oriented early 21st Century, social networks and smart phones, with a higher risk of identity fraud. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Javelin surveyed 5,022 …

  Vending machine payment-services provider USA Technologies Inc. has struck a one-year interchange deal with Visa Inc. that allows machine owners to accept debit cards without higher costs. New interchange pricing that took effect Oct. 1 had threatened to raise card-acceptance costs for USA Technologies’ clients by more than 200%. …

  George R. Jensen Jr., founder and chief executive of USA Technologies Inc. (USAT), has resigned under a cloud, casting a pall of uncertainty over the provider of wireless payment hardware and networking services for vending machines just as new interchange schedules affecting small debit card transactions threaten to crimp …

The bare-knuckled fight between leading U.S. point-of-sale terminal manufacturer VeriFone Holdings Inc. and the big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. keeps on escalating, with four lawsuits in three courts now pending. Both companies continue to crank out press releases, letters from their chief executives, and other public-relations missives that …