Yahoo Finance, whose PayDirect person-to-person payment service has been in operation domestically for three years, is now offering PayDirect International to allow electronic remittances from domestic users to recipients overseas. Announced this week, the new international payment service is an effort by Yahoo Finance, a unit of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo …

A major study on consumer payment preferences at the point of sale released today shows not only a stronger trend toward debit cards generally but also a stronger preference for cards secured by personal identification numbers rather than by signatures. This is despite strong promotion from the major card companies …

First Data Corp. and the Department of Justice this morning announced an agreement in which the government now gives the green light to FDC's acquisition of Concord EFS Inc. and in which the Denver-based processing giant agrees to sell its majority stake in the NYCE debit network. First Data now …

In an eventful week in the micropayments market, Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup BitPass Inc. emerged from its beta test and opened its service to all Internet merchants interested in using the BitPass system for payments. The company now has more than 300 content sellers enrolled, up from about 200 in …

Beset by complaints about the alleged lack of security surrounding their products, six makers of electronic voting machines have started a trade group intended to put to rest public apprehension about electronic voting. The six companies have formed the Election Technology Council in partnership with the Information Technology Association of …

Look for Visa USA Inc. to attempt a few more deals with other major retailers similar to the arrangement it has reportedly struck with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The nation's biggest retailer announced today it will no longer accept MasterCard International Inc.'s signature debit cards, citing their high costs. Industry observers …

Expect more big banks to follow Wells Fargo & Co. and Wachovia Corp. in switching their debit processing business from Concord EFS to Visa, according to an industry analyst. John Gould, director of consumer credit research for TowerGroup, a payments research company, says in the process of moving their debit-processing …

While First Data Corp. vows to contest action by the Department of Justice to stop its acquisition of Concord EFS, industry observers say the Denver-based processing giant may have good reason to fight for a stronger position in the market for debit transactions secured by personal identification numbers. The $7.3 …

A Web-based payments transaction processing program has been growing at about 400% annually since it branched out beyond the hospitality industry. When Las Vegas-based Shift4 Corp. developed its $$$ on the Net system for nearby resorts five years ago, the system was designed to allow the hotel, gift shops, casinos, …