By John Stewart Merchants that use the automated clearing house network to accept transactions may not be happy about a new fee expected to be part of a proposed same-day settlement plan, but the plan will impose significant new costs on financial institutions as well. And those costs could reshape …

By Jim Daly Warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. has been in the news recently because it is  replacing American Express Co. with Visa Inc. and Citigroup Inc. as its major-brand payment card partners. But a little-noticed change in its U.S. stores’ food courts shows what can happen when a retailer adds …

By Jim Daly The Canadian government’s move last week to strengthen its Code of Conduct for the payment card industry and the European Union’s approval in March of rock-bottom interchange rates for credit and debit cards has observers wondering if more regulation is in store for the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry. …

By Jim Daly Coming off a winter of discontent, American Express Co. late Thursday reported some respectable financial results for the first quarter. The loss of its relationships with Costco Wholesale Corp. in Canada, however, affected charge volumes, a prelude to the loss of Costco as a merchant acceptor and …

By Jim Daly Continuing its effort to get a massive data breach behind it, discount retailer Target Corp. announced Wednesday a $19 million settlement with MasterCard Inc. to compensate banks and credit unions for the fraud and card-reissuance costs they incurred for their MasterCard-branded credit and debit cards affected by …

The newest market for payments may one day lie inside a more than 100-year-old machine: the car. Just as payments is evolving to incorporate watches and fitness trackers, so too are futurists looking at how payments might make the move to cars. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Information Services Inc. is …

By Jim Daly Canada’s Finance Minister, Joe Oliver, on Monday issued an update to the government’s 5-year-old Code of Conduct for the credit and debit card industry. The update adds consumer protections, addresses the growth of mobile payments and premium cards, and makes other changes intended to give merchants more …

Independent sales organization CoCard Anderson and bill-payment software company Systems East Inc. are targeting insurance, government, and utilities merchants in a new program announced Tuesday. Merchant processing is not as widely adopted in these merchant categories as in retail, making them attractive prospects, CoCard says. In the deal, Systems East, …

Up against determined competition from big technology companies, financial institutions have always reassured themselves that they still have an edge in payments when it comes to consumer trust. Now, that edge appears to be eroding fast. On the question of consumer trust, banks and financial institutions are losing ground to …

Debit-rewards programs offered by banks appear to be rebounding a little, with younger consumers more motivated than other age groups to use them. That’s according to a new report from payments-research firm Mercator Advisory Group Inc. Debit rewards programs fell out of favor with banks following passage of the Durbin …