The acquiring business is accustomed to a slow rate of change, but that deliberate pace is masking radical underlying shifts in how merchants handle payments and whom they deal with for processing services, according to research at First Annapolis Consulting, Annapolis, Md. Change comes so slowly in this business that …

A central Illinois grocery-store chain will expand online and add mobile payments beginning this fall. The service enables consumers to use credit and debit cards along with electronic benefits transfer cards to pay for orders, says Ithaca, N.Y.-based Rosie Applications Inc., the vendor providing the technology. The move by Quincy, …

Moneris Solutions USA, the U.S. arm of Canada-based Moneris Solutions Corp., appears to have suitors, according to a recent Bloomberg.com report. Moneris is a joint venture between RBC Financial Group and BMO Bank of Montreal. Bloomberg.com reports that merchant processor Vantiv Inc. and Warburg Pincus LLC, a New York-based private …

Merchants that add surcharges to credit card transactions likely can continue to do so despite the overturning of the interchange settlement that enabled them to do so. A federal appeals court last week threw out an agreement initially reached four years ago over card-network interchange and acceptance rules. The interchange …

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday announced its Walmart Pay mobile wallet is now available in all of its 4,612 U.S. stores in all 50 states. The rollout’s completion comes about seven months after the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing behemoth introduced the product and about 10 weeks after first making the app …

How do consumers feel about payment card acceptance costs, often referred to as “swipe fees”? According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, consumers want the existing debit card interchange price cap to continue, and they want credit card pricing to benefit them and merchants as opposed to “credit card …

The latest skirmish between merchants and the major card brands has been brewing behind the scenes for months but went public early last month when an advocacy group for big-box retailers charged that a new twist on network rules is slowing the progress of mobile payments. The controversy involves regulations …

Ever since Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. announced their plans five years ago to introduce EMV chip cards in the United States, controversy has dogged the U.S. market’s effort to wean itself off of the magnetic stripe. One of the biggest conflicts has to do with how EMV cardholders should …

Following the audacious gatecrashing of the incumbent-payments party, MCX should have been king of the world. Instead, what occurred was an extended period of retrenchment. We have recently witnessed the likely demise of yet another attempt at cracking the mobile-payments nut. For many, the implosion of Merchant Customer Exchange LLC’s …

The first version of the online-authentication protocol has acquired a nasty rep. With a new version on the way, will it go from four-letter word to four-star performer? It just might be the best-kept secret in payments. An authentication protocol called 3-D Secure, which issuers, acquirers, and merchants have used …