By Lauri Giesen   Now that the Durbin rates are in place for debit cards, questions are swirling about debit’s growth prospects, the fate of PIN debit and of the small-ticket market, and the implications for prepaid cards.       Imagine a world where banks try to get …

  Discover can point to some major triumphs since it was launched by Sears a quarter-century ago, not least its success in taking on Visa and MasterCard. But a fast-changing payments landscape offers no assurance of future success. Discover’s plan: It pays to network.   By Jim Daly     …

  By Karen Epper Hoffman   Disbursing government benefits via prepaid cards has become an increasingly popular outlet for public agencies seeking operational efficiency and banks hoping to find new avenues to revenue and client retention.       For the beneficiaries of government benefits, “getting carded” is arguably a …

  The Star EFT network, which has been working for several years on ways to enable cardholders to conduct PIN-debit transactions with online merchants, said on Thursday it will offer a service from CardinalCommerce Corp. that promises to allow issuers to choose how to authenticate users of PIN-debit cards in …

  Vending machine payment-services provider USA Technologies Inc. has struck a one-year interchange deal with Visa Inc. that allows machine owners to accept debit cards without higher costs. New interchange pricing that took effect Oct. 1 had threatened to raise card-acceptance costs for USA Technologies’ clients by more than 200%. …

  n At a conference call with analysts to discuss the No. 2 payment card network’s third-quarter earnings, MasterCard president and chief executive Ajay Banga said his company is offering select merchants and merchant acquirers incentives to direct debit card transactions MasterCard’s way. “We are in a completely different competitive …

  The Concentrated World of ISOs   Reps from more than 1,200 independent sales organizations pound Main Streets, malls, and strip shopping centers in search of merchants interested in payment-processing services. That number suggests a wide-open industry, but a new study of ISOs sheds light on just how few players …

  By Lauri Giesen   The Durbin Amendment will disrupt merchant acquirers’ long-standing pricing strategies, at least temporarily. How long will the profit-padding opportunities created by Durbin last?       When retailers and their trade associations rallied in support of the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act last year, …

  What with the Durbin Amendment taking effect and serious moves in mobile payments, many observers had the feeling that the pace of change in e-payments quickened in 2011. But along with faster change come more problems. Herewith some of the most salient.   By Jim Daly and John Stewart …

Confirming other findings that payment card usage is picking up in the U.S., Visa Inc.’s credit and debit card dollar volume rose 9% in the network’s fourth fiscal 2011 quarter ended Sept. 30 to $516 billion from $474 billion a year earlier. Payment transactions increased 7.3% to 10.5 billion. Visa’s …