The U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee on Tuesday afternoon was scheduled to consider a data-security bill that is drawing fire from merchant trade groups and consumer advocates, but which has the support of the American Bankers Association. H.R. 2205, the Data Security Act of 2015, was introduced last …

Retailers and restaurants have a higher degree of awareness about EMV and its accompanying liability shift than other merchant types, finds the Paychex Small Business Survey, released Tuesday. In the survey of more than 760 small-business owners between Oct. 14 and Oct. 27, 69% of those in retail and restaurants …

Offering value-added services and focusing on the right merchant categories can boost profits and take the sting out of portfolio attrition. Talk of margin compression is nothing new for merchant acquirers. The ongoing race for merchants between acquirers, independent sales organizations, and merchant aggregators has led many players into a …

Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service will be accepted by electronics giant Best Buy Co. Inc., first for in-app purchases and then, later this year, in all of its 1,050 U.S. stores, Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Monday. Cook also announced that some 50 hospitals have agreed to accept …

Funding is pouring into payments technology at a furious rate. Now startups and established firms alike are wondering: How long can it last, and what’s the long-term impact? If one thing is certain about the six years or so that have passed since the financial crisis, it’s that nobody can …

Acquirers don’t have to be locked in the classic race to the bottom. From referral networks to better training to integrated technology, here’s a raft of ideas aimed at taking the pressure off profits. It’s a universal lament of many merchant-acquirer and independent sales organization executives: Selling credit and debit …

The big merchant acquirer TransFirst Inc. gave notice Wednesday that it is planning a partial initial public offering. Hauppauge, N.Y.-based TransFirst filed a registration statement, or S-1, with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing its IPO plans and putting a tentative value of $100 million on the deal. The filing says …

  Increasing competition, slow growth, and staying abreast of changing technology top the list of issues facing independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers during the next 12 months, finds a new report from Adil Consulting. Fifty-two percent of respondents cited competition as the top trend, followed by growth, 48%, and …

Prepaid card program managers and issuers are moving beyond their original customer base and ramping up offerings, producing intense competition and falling prices. By Jane Adler Shopped at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. lately? A trip past the checkout lane reveals a robust array of new prepaid card offerings. For example, Wal-Mart’s …

Plastic: High Growth, High Risk More than ever, plastic dominates the business of electronic payments in the United States, with two-thirds of all noncash transactions in 2012 occurring on a card, up substantially from 60% just three years earlier. That’s according to the Federal Reserve System’s triennial payments study, released …