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 …

  Online retailer Beyond the Rack is among the latest retailers to accept MasterCard Inc.’s MasterPass digital wallet service on its e-commerce site, the card brand recently announced. Beyond the Rack is a members-only online retailer that sells apparel and accessories. MasterPass is a wallet platform enables mobile payments by …

The carrier-controlled Isis mobile-payments system on Monday unveiled a new version of its application and predicted that about 30 million mobile phones will support the near-field-communication-based product by the end of 2014. Speaking at an industry trade show in Las Vegas, Michael Abbott, Isis’s chief executive, demonstrated the new mobile …

Taking a cue from its Bluebird prepaid card for customers of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., American Express Co. today relaunched its Serve prepaid card with new features, more reload locations, and new retailer partners along with no reload fees at 14,000 7-Eleven and CVS/pharmacy locations, and a $1 monthly fee that …

Tablets, at least of the aspirin type, are supposed to relieve a headache. For independent sales organizations and other acquirers and resellers, tablets of the computer type might trigger a migraine. Retailers are just starting to adopt iPads and other such tablet devices to run their stores, but the potential …

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 …

Gideon Samid • Gideon@BitMint.com Payment used to be the end point of a prolonged ritual called haggling. Buyer and seller would drive a hard bargain, to end up with a compromise that kicked off the act of payment. In modern stores, prices are pre-marked and generally non-negotiable, but both buyer …

Karen Epper Hoffman A new proposal from European regulators promises dramatic cuts in interchange revenue. Will these rules encourage even more stringent measures in the States? The United States often looks to Europe for trends in fashion, environmental sustainability, and other concerns. Now the issue is payment card expenses and …

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 …

Critics say state-by-state money-transfer licenses deter payments startups and entrench incumbents. Defenders say they protect the public. What’s really going on? By Jim Daly Christopher Ferro, who heads up legal and compliance operations at digital wire-transfer company Xoom Corp., was pleased. It was Sept. 5, and he had just opened …