TransFirst, a Dallas-based merchant processor, expects its acquisition of the third-party processing business of Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions to drive down its transaction costs and give it a sharper edge when it comes to pricing. The deal, announced yesterday and expected to close April 1, will add 90 million …

With Internet merchants increasingly demanding transaction capabilities beyond credit cards, acquirers and processors are starting to look into ways to simplify and standardize the introduction of such payment alternatives as electronic checks, debit cards, and third-party billing. The latest such effort comes from the nation's biggest transaction processor. Denver-based First …

Target Corp., which has opened more than 9 million accounts for its cobranded Visa smart card since the program's launch in November 2001, has announced it is shutting down the chip function on the card owing to lack of use. Target said in a statement today the phase-out will begin …

Information Architects Corp., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based provider of Web-based employee-screening technology, has announced it is entering the market for electronic point-of-sale transactions secured by cardholders' fingerprints. The company says it has acquired a U.S. patent (6,270,011 B1) that covers a fingerprint-scanning methodology for credit cards via scanners deployed at …

A survey of consumers released today reveals that while most say they are more informed about identity theft, they feel no safer from it than they did a year ago, and more consumers are reluctant to give online retailers personal data than was the case last year. The survey of …

Visa USA's increase in credit card interchange rates, announced today, are intended to help the giant bank card network keep its members' business in the face of recent efforts by American Express Co. to court banks as issuers of its cards, Visa says. As expected by many observers, Visa today …

With its new real-time check-verification and settlement product announced yesterday, Star Systems Inc. will be offering merchants and transaction processors a service that converts paper checks to electronic transactions just as retailers and financial institutions are preparing for the advent of check-imaging technology. Though Maitland, Fla.-based Star, the nation's largest …

MasterCard International plans by the end of the year to have in place a program to certify instant card issuance activity in the United States. The bank card company is testing an instant-issuance certification plan in Brazil now, and is concerned enough about perceived risk in instant issuance that it …

Pay By Touch, the San Francisco-based supplier of a point-of-sale payment technology that replaces cards and other media with fingerprint scans, says it is close to several major deals which, if consummated, will give the fledgling company and its system considerable momentum. Among the deals in the pipeline, says Pay …

A brief reference to a rival debit card network in a recent document sent from Visa USA Inc. to its members has raised the hackles of the co-founder of that network and embroiled him in a debate with Visa USA chief executive Carl Pascarella over the risk associated with debit …