Eight years from their genesis, the lawsuits challenging bank card interchange now collectively known as MDL 1720 are scheduled to reach a milestone Thursday when U.S. District Judge John Gleeson convenes a so-called fairness hearing in his Brooklyn, N.Y., courtroom. The hearing’s purpose is for Gleeson to determine whether …

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. …

Ronald Mazursky and Jehan HamediAn analysis of customer chatter on social media shows how the T&E giant may have to repair its new prepaid product to make it take wing. The recent announcement by American Express Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of upgrades to the Bluebird product seemingly responds to …

Lauri GiesenDespite years of effort by ISOs and acquirers, most small merchants still fail to meet the PCI security standards. But there are signs of hope. If you look at the big picture, progress by independent sales organizations and other merchant acquirers in getting small merchants into compliance with the …

Banks remain key clients, but ultimately Visa and MasterCard must serve the interests of major investors. Can they pull that off while warring with merchants over fees?By Peter Lucas Former Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Joe Saunders couldn’t have been happier on March 19, 2008, when the day’s trading …

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 …

Schnuck Markets Inc. found itself in a bit of a pickle recently when it learned that its insurance company is refusing to cover losses from a data breach at the regional grocery store chain that compromised up to 2.4 million debit and credit cards. The Schnucks incident and other recent …