Visa Inc. will launch its digital wallet product some time early in 2012, but contactless-payment capability won’t be part of the wallet until the second half of the year, a Visa executive responsible for the product tells Digital Transactions News. The first release of the wallet, which Visa is …

  n While the mobile service just launched, early results have been “overwhelmingly positive,” says Julian King, Xoom’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate development. “Out customer base is delighted, but it’s super early.” The new service relies on technology from mobile-commerce vendor Usablenet Inc., New York. n The …

Vantiv Inc. filed a registration statement on Thursday for a proposed initial public offering of common stock that, if successful, would have a business started by Fifth Third Bancorp join the thin ranks of publicly traded processors that get most of their revenues from merchant acquiring. Vantiv, formerly known as …

  n Online payments to billers increased nearly 10%, to 657.3 million transactions, compared to the same quarter in 2010. These are transactions handled under the ACH’s WEB application, which for some time now has been the network’s biggest e-check category. They represent payments consumers make on the Web sites …

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Extending itself further into mobile retailing and software, VeriFone Systems Inc. on Tuesday announced it has acquired 9-year-old Global Bay Media Technologies, a South Plainfield, N.J., vendor of in-store mobile solutions. Terms of the deal, which had already closed by the time of the announcement, were not disclosed. The acquisition …

  The Concentrated World of ISOs   Reps from more than 1,200 independent sales organizations pound Main Streets, malls, and strip shopping centers in search of merchants interested in payment-processing services. That number suggests a wide-open industry, but a new study of ISOs sheds light on just how few players …

  By Lauri Giesen   The Durbin Amendment will disrupt merchant acquirers’ long-standing pricing strategies, at least temporarily. How long will the profit-padding opportunities created by Durbin last?       When retailers and their trade associations rallied in support of the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act last year, …

  By Jane Adler   The payments industry has made great strides in the area of security, but malicious computer code is still an ever-evolving threat to processors and merchants.       For a restaurant manager, Gary Sipp knows a whole lot about malicious computer software, usually referred to …

  By Peter Lucas   With transactions leveling off, independent ATM networks are gearing up to offer a host of new services aimed at the unbanked and the offers-obsessed.       Increasing ATM transaction volume is a tall order these days. Growth in total transaction volume has slowed to …