Already a force in remote deposit capture and specialty deposit and payment services, privately held BServ Inc.’s BankServ on Tuesday announced that it would acquire a pioneer in the remote capture niche, Zions Bancorporation’s wholly owned NetDeposit LLC subsidiary. The combined operation will serve more than 100,000 business locations and …

First Data Corp.’s Star Network introduced on Wednesday technology that represents the first effort by a U.S. electronic funds transfer network to adopt contactless transactions. The technology, which Star calls CertiFlash, will use chips embedded in PIN debit cards to communicate with point-of-sale readers and to generate one-time account numbers …

Recognizing that sloppy payment-processing software installations can lead to data breaches, Visa Inc. on Tuesday issued what it calls the top 10 best practices for secure software management. Visa is aiming the guidance mostly at third-party software vendors, integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), and others that sell or license card-processing applications …

NACHA, the regulator for the automated clearing house network, announced on Tuesday it has launched a long-awaited pilot for a payment method that would let banks convert low-value consumer checks into electronic transactions and then clear them through the ACH. The method, called Deposited Check Truncation (DCT), is intended to …

Proximity payments using mobile phones and micro Secure Digital (SD) cards took an important step toward commercial reality in the U.S. market with the news that Bank of America Corp. will start a pilot next month in the New York area. While the news is of yet another pilot at …

Blackhawk Network, the supermarket-based prepaid card specialist firmly rooted in gift cards, announced on Monday its first major foray into general-purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid cards. The move puts Blackhawk into direct competition with powerhouses Green Dot Corp. and NetSpend Inc., but that’s okay, according to chief marketing officer Teri Llach. …

Overall automated clearing house transaction volumes grew only 1.5% in the second quarter versus the year-earlier period, but most of the electronic-check ACH applications grew faster. The notable exception was ARC, for accounts-receivable conversion of bill payments sent to lockboxes. Continuing a trend that started two years ago and likely …

Merchant processing is one of the bright stars in U.S. Bancorp’s firmament, and Mike Passilla, the new boss of the Minneapolis-based banking firm’s Elavon merchant-acquiring subsidiary, aims to keep payments shining. Passilla on Monday became president and chief executive of Atlanta-based Elavon, which serves 1.2 million merchants in North America …

Mobile remote deposit capture took a couple of steps forward over the past week, though how big those steps are won’t be known for a while. First, alternative payments leader PayPal Inc. indicated that it was configuring its application for Apple Inc.’s iPhone to handle mobile remote deposit. And mobile …

While the payment card industry is bracing for debit card interchange and other regulations that will come next year from the Federal Reserve as a result of the new financial-reform law, merchant acquirers on Monday got a long-anticipated reporting rule. Beginning with the 2011 tax year, acquirers must report how …