Leading U.S. point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. late on Wednesday disclosed it was making a cash bid for archrival Hypercom Corp. in what VeriFone says is an effort to expand its presence in continental Europe. Hypercom's board of directors early Thursday rejected the offer, calling it “opportunistic,” and said …

Bling Nation Ltd.’s decision to use VeriFone Systems Inc. terminals, announced this week, includes an agreement to harness VeriFone’s transaction gateway as well as its reseller network in a move that could bring PayPal Inc. acceptance to thousands of brick-and-mortar merchants. Bling has been testing PayPal acceptance since the end …

CardinalCommerce Corp., a major player in the business of enabling alternative payments for merchants and processors, entered the nascent business of online PIN debit on Tuesday with a product it says requires little to no integration work by merchants, gateways, processors, or networks. The Mentor, Ohio-based company says it has …

Reflecting trends seen by its larger network competitors, Discover Financial Services on Monday reported modest growth in credit card volumes and bigger growth in debit. Discover, in releasing earnings for its third fiscal 2010 quarter ended Aug. 31, also said that its 4-year-old effort to recruit merchant acquirers to sign …

NACHA’s long-awaited Secure Vault Payments (SVP) program, which lets consumers make guaranteed payments online through the automated clearing house network, officially became a commercially available product on Thursday after a pilot that began in the spring of 2008. The new product can now be offered by any bank linked to …

In an apparent first in the debit card market, MasterCard Inc. has a struck a deal with Delta Air Lines Inc. to build a national network of issuers of Delta SkyMiles cobranded debit cards bearing the MasterCard logo. Atlanta-based SunTrust Banks Inc. currently is the sole issuer of Delta debit …

PayNearMe Inc. on Wednesday announced the launch of a payment system that lets unbanked consumers pay for goods online or over the phone with cash. The system, which relies on real-time links to point-of-sale terminals in 6,000 U.S. 7-Eleven stores to collect and record cash transactions, has attracted eight announced …

Another seismic merger rumbled through the merchant-acquiring industry on Wednesday when the big acquirer Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC announced it had struck an agreement to buy Louisville, Ky.-based National Processing Co. When the deal closes, Cincinnati-based Fifth Third will have more than 420,000 merchant locations and annualized charge volume …

With the coming of debit card interchange regulation and more merchant freedom from payment card network operating rules, Visa Inc. has established what it calls “strategy teams” to develop alternatives and respond once the Federal Reserve issues new rules next year. That’s the word from Visa chief financial officer Byron …

When eBay Inc. late last month announced it will no longer allow so-called third-party checkout services after June 30, 2011, the San Jose, Calif.-based online auctioneer’s policy shift attracted plenty of attention. Less noted was a decision, announced at the same time, to allow payment gateways other than PayPal to …