Although many U.S. merchants and processors have met Visa Inc.’s July 1 deadline for replacing unapproved point-of-sale software applications with ones that meet requirements of the Payment Application data-security standard, or PA-DSS, many non-compliant card-processing applications remain in the marketplace, Visa says. While Visa would not release numbers on compliance, …

Merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has installed its new end-to-end encryption terminals at more than 1,020 merchants since commercially launching the technology on May 24, the company reports. Heartland also will be rolling out a small USB card reader, or “wedge,” later this month, says Steve Elefant, chief information …

With application developers rushing to bring apps to market for Apple Inc.’s immensely popular iPad tablet computer, payment service provider Square Inc. is predicting the iPad will become a game changer in wireless payments, and says that it will aggressively pursue developing iPad applications that enrich the transaction experience. The …

Payments-industry partisans of all stripes got onto their soap boxes on Friday and Monday to praise or denounce U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s successful amendment that could pave the way for regulation of debit card interchange and acceptance terms. Merchant interests basked in the surprisingly large (64-33) victory they scored late …

ViVOtech Inc., perhaps best known as a maker of readers that enable contactless card transactions, this week plunged further into the point-of-sale business with the introduction of a PIN pad capable of processing contactless payments. The device, known as the ViVOpay 8100, brings the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company into closer …

Transaction Network Services Inc. this week announced its entry in what is becoming an increasingly crowded market?applications that let smart phones act as credit and debit card acceptance devices. But TNS, which specializes in providing the transaction-transport systems for point-of-sale and ATM networks, says it will set itself apart by …

The concept of an all-digital check, which surfaced in a paper published in November by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, could move from theory to reality in a matter of months now that a technology startup in Atlanta has won a pair of patents covering applications of the idea. …

Here's one way credit card issuers could win back some popularity in an increasingly debit card world: make credit cards function like debit cards. That's the essence of a new product from processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), which last week unveiled its TSYS Hybrid card. The patent-pending product enables …

Visa Inc.'s announcement this week that starting this summer it will no longer require signatures for transactions of $25 or less at most U.S. merchants heralds a policy that will result in faster and smoother transactions but could also undermine the payments industry's move toward contactless technology. “The merchant proposition …

A busy year is on tap for the PCI Security Standards Council, with revisions due not only for the main Payment Card Industry data-security standard but also standards governing PIN-entry devices and payment-processing software applications. Plus, the PCI Council plans to take a close look at two widely discussed security …