America Online Inc. will begin offering packages of premium content on its Internet service through new software from Valista Ltd., an Ireland-based payment software company, the companies announced today. The new solution allows AOL to target and price particular packages, or bundles, to particular audiences, with special promotional pricing and …

Yahoo Finance's decision to shutter its 4-year-old PayDirect person-to-person payment service means it is also discontinuing a service it started up only 10 months ago to allow electronic remittances from domestic users to recipients overseas. The new international payment service was an effort by Yahoo Finance, a unit of Sunnyvale, …

In an effort to make amends to sellers that were affected by its recent service outage, PayPal Inc. will credit all seller transaction fees incurred between 12 a.m. and midnight Pacific time tomorrow. Accounts eligible to receive the credits, which PayPal will distribute by Nov. 25, are premier and business …

Livewire International Inc., a York, Pa.-based software company with about 100 kiosks and other devices on its network selling items like ski-lift tickets, has teamed up with at least one ATM manufacturer and plans to make agreements with several more to sell tickets through ATMs in supermarkets and convenience stores. …

Magex Ltd., a London-based e-commerce and person-to-person transaction processor, has acquired Open Payment Technologies Inc., a provider of stored-value card systems to restaurants, supermarkets, and other merchants. A price was not disclosed. Phoenix-based OPT will become a division of Magex, and Dave Ingwersen, OPT's president, is assuming the title of …

Arthur Blank & Co. Inc., a Boston-based maker of plastic payment and loyalty cards, is getting into the market for cards equipped with radio-frequency-identification technology, with ambitions particularly for cards supporting loyalty programs and payments in the quick-service retail market. “We as a company are very bullish [on RFID],” says …

Carl F. Pascarella's decision to retire in September 2005 as chief executive of Visa USA is being greeted in the payments industry with expressions of praise for his leadership in transforming the San Francisco-based bank card network from a one-dimensional credit card company into a force to be reckoned with …

A trade group that is developing a new transaction-messaging standard based on extensible markup language (XML) for financial transactions says it is now turning its attention to point-of-sale payments. The Interactive Financial Exchange Forum, Falls Church, Va., released earlier this year a version of the Interactive Financial Exchange (IFX) standard …

Pay By Touch, the San Francisco-based supplier of a point-of-sale payment technology that replaces cards and other media with fingerprint scans, says it is close to several major deals which, if consummated, will give the fledgling company and its system considerable momentum. Among the deals in the pipeline, says Pay …

Digency Inc., an El Dorado Hills, Calif.-based third-party processing startup specializing in Internet payments, has begun processing transactions for a handful of merchants and now looks to execute an ambitious business plan that calls for the company to earn $13 million in fee revenue in 2004 from some 240 online …