Recent U.S Department of Justice demands for documentation about the payment card networks' acceptance rules have the merchant-acquiring industry wondering if the networks are in for another confrontation with antitrust authorities. If so, the issue will involve how much freedom card-accepting merchants should have to seek other forms of payment …

Like the other payment card networks that recently reported their quarterly financials, MasterCard Inc. saw softening volumes in the third quarter. Things worsened in October but, like bank card rival Visa Inc., MasterCard's debit business is holding up much better than credit in what MasterCard president and chief executive Robert …

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. and processor First Data Corp. said on Monday they have completed the previously announced split-up of their joint venture called Chase Paymentech Solutions, the world's largest merchant acquirer. The bank-owned Chase Paymentech will focus on alternative payments and geographic expansion with its 51% share …

Debit cards have been growing faster than credit cards for years now in the United States, but they'll be more important than ever for Visa Inc.'s growth in the near term as wary banks rein in lending. With the weakening economy, what had been slow credit card payment growth went …

MasterCard Inc. on Thursday announced a service it sees as a major step toward the ultimate commericialization of contactless payments via mobile phones. Intended primarily for the North American and European markets, the MasterCard Over-the-Air Provisioning Service is aimed at allowing any member issuer to readily personalize a handset for …

Canada's financial institutions will start issuing microchip-embedded debit cards by the end of the year, the country's national electronic funds transfer network said on Tuesday. The rollout of chip cards, which follows a year-long pilot of so-called chip-and-PIN technology in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, area, will over the course of four …

With the exception of the new back-office conversion application, or BOC, growth rates for the automated clearing house's electronic-check codes for transactions originating with paper checks declined in the third quarter. Those numbers might indicate one-time or seasonal blips, especially with the weakening economy, but they could also show that …

Merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations took a hit in Congress this year when a reporting provision passed, but other legal threats?along with possible opportunities?await next year. That's the word from payments executives and lawyers who stay abreast of Washington affairs and who spoke at an ISO conference Wednesday in …

Agents with independent sales organizations or even large merchant processors trying to sell prospective merchants on new point-of-sale technology can get the attention of decision makers, but only if they anticipate how a smart merchant will make a complex buying decision, a senior executive with the nation's largest restaurant chain …

The Accel/Exchange electronic funds transfer network said on Thursday it will launch a pilot in which it will switch PIN debit transactions originating at e-commerce stores. The pilot, which the Morris Plains, N.J.-based network will run with Acculynk Inc., a provider of PIN debit technology tailored for use online, will …