A new payment system called BillMyParents debuted Monday that aims to tap an estimated $40 billion in potential online spending by teens and preteens, or “tweens.” But BillMyParents' success depends not just on technology, but also on the receptiveness of parents to receive e-mails or text messages from their progeny …

Payment card acceptance costs have been swept into the furious Congressional debate about credit card interest rates, fees, and terms. Late Thursday afternoon, a proposal was pending in the U.S. Senate that would give merchants greater leeway to offer customers discounts if they use cash, checks, or debit cards versus …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. paid discount fees totaling more than $1 billion to take credit and debit cards in the 12 months ended Jan. 31. Acceptance costs now exceed health-care premiums at The Home Depot Inc. And TJX Cos. Inc. finds sagging apparel prices make it difficult to recoup acceptance costs …

RBS WorldPay Inc., the other big merchant acquirer besides Heartland Payment Systems Inc. to report a major data breach in recent months, this week announced that it has attained validated compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI. But Atlanta-based RBS WorldPay didn't say anything in its news …

The top two executives of merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. on Thursday painted a picture of a company on the mend in the wake of the big data breach it disclosed in January. But the recession and the far-from-over effects of the breach still took a toll on the …

MasterCard Inc. is getting a big boost from The Travelex Group, a multinational distributor of travel-related prepaid cards. Under a deal announced last week, Travelex will convert its payment card network brand to MasterCard and process card transactions on MasterCard's year-old debit processing platform called Integrated Processing Solutions, or IPS. …

Specialty payment processor BankServ, one of the pioneers of remote deposit capture, is preparing a move into the mobile-payments market thanks to its recent acquisition of the assets of Commerciant LP. Houston-based Commerciant offers merchants wireless payments software and a unique wireless terminal that scans checks and takes credit card …

A payments-focused group of heavyweight merchants is emerging from obscurity to push for new standards to protect credit and debit card data. But just how these standards would complement or possibly conflict with the existing Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) remains unknown. The organization, called the Merchant Advisory Group, …

Its ultimate significance may prove to be months away, but a new handset introduced last week by Nokia has some mobile-payments observers expressing hope that talk of mobile transactions at the point of sale may now be more realistic. “It is definitely something that will move the conversation along,” says …

It's been implicit for a while, but eBay Inc. on Wednesday made it clear that it has big hopes for its PayPal payments subsidiary as the company evolves from its core Internet auction business. “PayPal's opportunity and its niche is to power all of e-commerce,” eBay president and chief executive …