Tuesday's news that Cynergy Data was filing for bankruptcy and planning to sell its assets serves as perhaps an extreme example of the fierce toll the recession is taking on independent sales organizations, observers say. Indeed, some say the ravages of reduced payment volumes, failed merchants, and squeezed margins could …

With $83 million in debt added since 2007, accounting errors, and finally the recession, the big independent sales organization Cynergy Data LLC concluded late this summer that it needed bankruptcy-court protection, according to an emerging picture of the company as it seeks to sell its assets to a private-equity firm. …

Citing the weak economy and “an unsustainable debt load,” the big independent sales organization Cynergy Data filed for Chapter 11 protection Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The Long Island City, N.Y.-based processor also said it planned to sell its assets to The ComVest Group, a private-equity firm with …

As an attorney for the merchant plaintiffs predicted earlier this summer, Visa Inc. disclosed Monday that it plans to prepay the remaining $800 million of its settlement obligations with merchants under the so-called Wal-Mart debit card class action for a discounted $682 million. If the plan gets court approval, the …

Alternative-payments processor Moneta Corp. this week announced the addition of three online merchants to its roster of clients and next week will sign a major Internet housewares retailer, says Guido F. Sacchi, chief executive of the Atlanta-based company. In all, some 20 merchants will be signed by month's end, he …

While much of the credit and debit card industry's attention is focused on new indictments that detail how hackers penetrated the computer systems of big processors and merchants to steal tens of millions of card numbers (Digital Transactions News, Aug. 18), the PCI Security Standards Council is trying to shine …

Intuit Inc. has quietly introduced an online-payment product that may be aimed initially at small businesses looking for ways to let other businesses pay them electronically, but could move into consumer payments later on. The new service, called Intuit PaymentNetwork, charges a flat 50 cents per transaction, with no set-up …

An application officially announced this week extends to virtually any cell phone the capability of accepting credit cards, a function that up to now mobile merchants have found mostly restricted to so-called smart phones like the iPhone or BlackBerry. The wCharge Credit Card Terminal, quietly introduced early this year by …

Merchants increasingly are complaining about the rising cost of accepting PIN-debit transactions, once by far the cheapest payment they could process from any piece of plastic. Now, data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City show why: the cost of accepting PIN-debit cards rose 305% between 1996 and …

Despite widespread efforts to educate small merchants about the Payment Card Industry data-security standards (PCI DSS), a large majority still don't understand fully the complex requirements, according to a study released today by the National Retail Federation, ControlScan and the PCI Knowledge Base. The survey of 220 so-called Level 4 …