By Jim Daly An injunction that puts New York State’s ban on merchants’ credit card surcharges on hold could be a prelude to a bigger legal assault on states’ surcharge restrictions. If pro-surcharging merchants prevail, their actions could add some oomph to a provision in the pending settlement of unrelated …

Ammo for ISOs in the Tablet Wars Independent sales organizations are starting to feel squeezed by technology companies selling tablet-based point-of-sale solutions to merchants, according to terminal kingpin VeriFone Systems Inc. So VeriFone last month rolled out a tablet-based platform for its resellers that they can price and market to …

Steve Mott Two years after Google’s splashy mobile-wallet debut, there are more wallets than ever, even though Google and others have stumbled. What’s wrong with current wallet strategies, and what kind of future do digital wallets have? If things go according to unofficial reports, the readers of this article will …

Ronald Mazursky and Jehan HamediAn analysis of customer chatter on social media shows how the T&E giant may have to repair its new prepaid product to make it take wing. The recent announcement by American Express Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of upgrades to the Bluebird product seemingly responds to …

Banks remain key clients, but ultimately Visa and MasterCard must serve the interests of major investors. Can they pull that off while warring with merchants over fees?By Peter Lucas Former Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Joe Saunders couldn’t have been happier on March 19, 2008, when the day’s trading …

By Jane Adler The Shanghai-based payments powerhouse has cut deals with players like Discover and FIS to boost issuance and acceptance share. Meanwhile, U.S. companies’ welcome in China isn’t so warm.Get ready. China’s giant payments network UnionPay is about to launch its first card for American consumers, marking a further …

By John Stewart n The inexorable economics of the Durbin Amendment are beginning to make themselves felt in the vibrant business of network-branded gift cards. n JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of a handful of major banks that offer Visa- and MasterCard-branded gift cards, this spring stopped selling its Visa …

By Jim Daly The U.S. virtual-currency market grew 52% in 2012 and this year it could more than double to $10.9 billion in purchases, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. What’s more, virtual currency is moving beyond its online-game moorings and into more real-world settings, though …

Settlement? What Settlement? Who said the proposed settlement of a massive court case involving interchange unveiled in July 2012 would put to rest the decades-old dispute between merchants and the bank card networks over card-acceptance costs? Beginning just before Memorial Day, partisans filed three interchange-related lawsuits in less than a …

Elizabeth Whalen So far, usage of so-called open-fare payment systems is low, and now transit agencies will confront new problems implementing them. As the hardware for accepting payments on public-transportation systems in many cities nears obsolescence, transit authorities are planning upgrades that allow riders to pay fares with something they …