By John Stewart n Independent sales organizations are starting to feel squeezed by technology companies selling tablet-based point-of-sale solutions to merchants, according to terminal kingpin VeriFone Systems Inc. So VeriFone on Wednesday rolled out a tablet-based platform for its resellers that they can price and market to their merchants. n …

By Jim Daly The Isis mobile-payments service on Wednesday said five specialty point-of-sale hardware makers would integrate Isis’s SmartTap technology into their products. The companies join a number of major POS terminal makers, including U.S. market leaders VeriFone Systems Inc., Ingenico S.A. and Equinox Payments, already committed to supporting Isis …

Microsoft Corp.’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia Corp.’s handset business, announced late on Monday, brings to the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant a pioneer in near-field communication technology and allows it to combine hardware with a mobile operating system in the manner of rivals Google Inc. and Apple Inc. It remains …

NFC Stalwart Isis Preps for a Rollout Isis, the smart-phone-based payments machine owned by three big mobile-telecommunications carriers, has stuck with near-field communication (NFC) through thick and thin while other mobile-payments providers have either avoided the high-powered but demanding technology altogether—think PayPal—or scaled back their commitment to it—think Google Inc. …

By Jim Daly and John Stewart A judge says the Federal Reserve Board failed to carry out Congress’s will for debit cards when it wrote its rules implementing the Durbin Amendment. Now what? Most businesses dislike government regulations. But they really hate situations where a regulation gets upended, the result …

Elizabeth WhalenSales of lottery tickets at ATMs and gas pumps open up new opportunities for states and retailers. Several years ago, while walking through the lobby of a Florida hotel, Daniel Cage noticed an ATM set up next to a lottery kiosk. He had just finished a conversation about how …

The Isis smart-phone-based payments machine is finally getting in gear, observers say, in the wake of several recent developments involving the service that is jointly owned by three big mobile-telecommunications carriers. Giant card issuer JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Monday said that several of its cards will support the Isis …

By Jim Daly B is back. That is, what the Federal Reserve Board back in 2011 dubbed “Alternative B” for implementing the transaction-routing requirements in the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment. Alternative B would have required each debit card to provide the merchant access to at least two signature and two …

Elizabeth Whalen So far, usage of so-called open-fare payment systems is low, and now transit agencies will confront new problems implementing them. As the hardware for accepting payments on public-transportation systems in many cities nears obsolescence, transit authorities are planning upgrades that allow riders to pay fares with something they …

Lauri Giesen The ranks of regional EFT networks have dwindled from more than 100 in the 1980s to about 20 today. What are the smaller ones doing to stay alive—and thrive? In the mid-1980s, the United States had about 150 electronic funds transfer networks. Apart from their often colorful names—bygone …