The softening economy so far hasn't taken a big bite out of payment processors' earnings, but it is having some effects. Meanwhile, processors continue to streamline their operations, integrate acquisitions, and roll out new services. ? Reflecting the recent weakness in consumer spending, big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. …

Best known for its focus on restaurant merchant acquiring, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is about to become a major force in acquiring card transactions for petroleum retailers and convenience stores thanks to its pending, $77.5 million acquisition of Alliance Data Systems Corp.'s Network Services unit. Alliance Data recently put that …

Three months after biometrics-technology provider and payment processor Pay By Touch sought protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles, the dismantling of the firm’s sprawling empire is largely over. Judge Thomas B. Donovan recently approved the sale of the core assets of Solidus Networks Inc.—the formal name of Pay …

After first trying to sell its merchant-processing business as a single unit, bankrupt Solidus Networks Inc., which does business as Pay By Touch, is expected to sell half of it to a big Utah-based merchant acquirer, Merrick Bank Corp., for $2 million, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court …

Newly independent of their founding bank owners, payment card processors Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) and Metavante Technologies Inc. weighed in this week with their fourth-quarter financials. The numbers by and large showed growth after a thicket of one-time spin-off and other expenses is cleared away, but both companies have …

U.S. Bancorp's Nova Information Services Inc. merchant-acquiring subsidiary is diving headfirst into the increasingly competitive payment-gateway business with its pending acquisition of Southern DataComm Inc., a gateway with a big presence in the hospitality sector. Largo, Fla.-based Southern DataComm handles an estimated $50 billion-plus in annualized payment volume, according to …

Brentwood, Tenn.-based Goldleaf Financial Solutions Inc., a technology-services provider for 2,800 community financial institutions, on Thursday took a big leap into the fast-growing niche of remote deposit capture by announcing its $42.5 million acquisition of Alogent Corp., a prominent purveyor of remote-deposit software. Until now, Goldleaf's core business has been …

An outside manager with restructuring experience, Thomas Lumsden of FTI Consulting Inc., is now running financially troubled biometric-payment provider Pay By Touch under terms of a Delaware court order signed Friday, San Francisco-based Pay By Touch announced on Monday. The Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington appointed Lumsden, senior managing director …

The ax is falling at First Data Corp. two months after the huge processor's $29 billion leveraged buyout by private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Greenwood Village, Colo.-based First Data announced Thursday that it is cutting 6% of its workforce, or about 1,700 employees. Thanks to recent acquisitions, however, …

With compliance deadlines already passed for some merchants and looming for others, the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) has drawn a bevy of vendors into the market to help merchants cope with one or more of its dozen requirements. Now the biggest vendor yet is jumping in. IBM Corp. …