The ranks of major retailers suing the bank card networks over interchange swelled by one today when Publix Super Markets Inc. announced it had filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Visa USA and MasterCard International. The Lakeland, Fla.-based grocery chain's suit alleges the practice of setting interchange by the two …

Nearly a year after the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21) took effect, sparking a steady build-up in check-image exchange volume, more exchanges are being settled on paper documents than some observers expected. The reason is that many paying banks are unprepared to settle on images and …

CyberSource Corp.'s deal to acquire the assets of CardSystems Inc. would hand the Mountain View, Calif.-based transaction-gateway provider a major sales channel for both card-present and Web-based payment processing, catapulting the company squarely into the ranks of processors for small and mid-sized multi-channel merchants, according to observers. The move also …

Reporting rapid growth for its payment service and rising interest in a new marketing and finance platform it rolled out last month, I4 Commerce Inc. says it will begin next year expanding into new payment channels, with debit and stored-value ranking as distinct possibilities. The company will end the year …

Electronic bill-payment processor Online Resources Corp. plans to have three PIN-less debit pilots live by year's end, says Matthew P. Lawlor, chief executive of the Chantilly, Va.-based company. He sees high potential for the product in the stored-value and debt-collections markets, and hints the pilots will be aimed at these …

Online Resource Corp. next month will begin a pilot of an online merchant database it hopes will allow issuers to resolve consumer questions regarding card payments, stopping them from becoming expensive retrieval requests and chargebacks. The new service will be tried out with an unnamed top-five debit card issuer, the …

A Seattle-based startup that has been quietly testing a contactless payment system intended to be branded and controlled by merchants is now marketing the system as a way for retailers to control rising card-acceptance costs. Accelitec Inc. says its PayPilot system, which includes token dispensers, tokens equipped with chip-and-transmitter inlays, …

Customer incentives represent a growing new niche for gift cards, according to the results of a new survey. Of some 68 decision-makers canvassed, 52% said they are likely to offer gift cards as a customer incentive in the next 12 months. Of all industries represented in the survey, restaurants represent …

Signature-based debit continued to grow at double-digit rates in the second quarter, as indicated by statistics released today by MasterCard International. Total MasterCard signature, or off-line, debit volume hit $48 billion in the U.S., up 32.3% over the same period last year. The point-of-sale component of this activity was $29.1 …

The fallout from the largest data-security breach yet in the electronic payments business continues, with rival processors looking to pick up new merchants now that both Visa U.S.A. and American Express Co. have said they are terminating CardSystems Solutions Inc. as a processor on their networks. CardSystems' list of clients …