Gideon Samid • Gideon@BitMint.com Payment used to be the end point of a prolonged ritual called haggling. Buyer and seller would drive a hard bargain, to end up with a compromise that kicked off the act of payment. In modern stores, prices are pre-marked and generally non-negotiable, but both buyer …

  The automated clearing house network remains a huge and critical payments player, but its initiatives don’t grab headlines like mobile payments or even prepaid cards do. So just what is the ACH up to these days? By Jim Daly For the automated clearing house, it’s tough trying to get …

Value-added resellers have turned into very effective—but increasingly expensive—sales engines for merchant processors. When does it make sense to work with them—and just how much of a cut do they take? By Peter Lucas Ten years ago, value-added resellers looking to broaden their reach to merchants were aggressively pursuing relationships …

Federal regulators on Tuesday issued their final rule for preventing terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals from using prepaid cards for money laundering. The new rule from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) subjects merchants and other non-bank entities that sell or manage prepaid cards to some …

Cover Story Transaction volumes are rising as NACHA executes on an ambitious agenda of new payments initiatives. Can everything  the ACH network’s governing body  wants come to pass? By Jim Daly Think you’re busy? Of course you are, but the folks at NACHA, governing body of the automated clearing house …

By Lauri Giesen Acquirers and payment specialists are coming out with new services for small and mid-size health-care providers to convert paper-based payments into electronics. But it’s a delicate, time-consuming undertaking. In some ways, moving cash and paper-based payments to electronics is not much different for health-care providers than it …

The new Isis mobile-payments venture has recruited some merchants as it builds the acceptance side of its network, the Isis executive overseeing the merchant effort said on Wednesday. “We do have signed merchants at this point,” Jim Stapleton, head of sales and account management at Isis and a veteran of …

Payment processor Total System Services Inc. sees new opportunities in merchant acquiring while No. 3 credit card network American Express Co. saw a double-digit jump in charge volume in the fourth quarter, an indication of a possible revival in consumer spending. Boosted by its new business from merchant acquirer First …

Networks Free of IRDs, Check 21 Challenges the ACHLinda Punch The Check 21 law created the substitute check, or image-replacement document. After six years and a brief boom, IRDs are on their way to the payments dustbin, just as Check 21’s backers intended. What are the implications for ACH payments? …

Driven by growth in government programs, corporate payroll cards, and health care, the network-branded prepaid card sector can expect its U.S. load volume to nearly quadruple from an estimated $120.2 billion last year to more than $440 billion in 2017, according to research commissioned by MasterCard Inc. The study, by …