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U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin on Tuesday said he is aware that new Visa and MasterCard interchange schedules will cause some merchants to pay much more in interchange when a consumer uses a debit card from a big bank to pay for small purchases. Durbin said the Federal Reserve Board should …

  n “It’s not final by any means,” vows Patrick H. Gaines, chief executive of Vancouver, British Columbia-based LML. The company is preparing an appeal of the patent office’s action, he says, and has also applied for its own re-examination, which could allow it to add or amend claims. “Certain …

  CashStar Inc. plans early next year to roll out a mobile app that will let consumers tap unredeemed rewards points held at banks to buy digital gift cards from major merchants. The app will also feature location-based alerts to let users know when they are near a merchant issuer. …

  Visa Gives a Push to Prepaid Cards   If Visa Inc. could be personified as an illustrious 19th Century editor, he might be saying, “Go prepaid, young man.”   The No. 1 payment card network’s interchange schedule effective Oct. 1, the day new federal debit card interchange price controls …

  BY Linda Punch   New IRS reporting requirements for processors and merchants take effect soon. The extra work involved is one formidable obstacle for the acquiring business. Another one is the IRS itself.       When Congress passed a new law requiring merchant acquirers to report merchants’ electronic-payment …

  By Chris Sanson and Marc Abbey   Research shows that even with small merchants, new portfolio additions are bringing in less revenue than the ones that left. Offsetting this alarming trend is something called lifetime value management.       Negative substitution in acquiring is a concept in which …

  By Jane Adler   Rightly or wrongly, lots of investors are mesmerized by the high-profile startup Square. But it’s not the only newbie transforming the payments industry as venture-capital firms scramble to find the next big idea.       Some startup companies get all the attention.   The …

  By Peter Lucas   Spam e-mail may be a constant irritant to consumers, but it’s big business for merchant acquirers willing to settle transactions resulting from those unsolicited ads. Can anything be done to stop it?       Every day some unsuspecting consumer receives an unsolicited e-mail from …

  By Bill Kinnelly and Anthony James   Most of the talk about the Durbin Amendment centers on debit interchange controls, but the sweeping measure must be considered in full and in relation to other costs.       As we enter the Durbin Era of debit card processing, much …