Breach-notification laws, misbehaving merchants, and online sales tax legislation are just three potential hotspots for legislation and regulation in 2015, advise payments industry attorneys. Long a wish-list item for many, a uniform, national breach-notification law could see enactment in 2015, thanks —unfortunately—to the flurry of large-and small-scale payment card data …

Financial institutions, processors, and regulators have been moving toward systems that speed up electronic payments, but ironically their success in replacing paper checks with electronic processing may undermine their efforts. That’s because image exchange, the process by which paper checks are replaced by electronic images for clearing, has driven down …

Gateway and e-commerce services provider Digital River Inc. on Monday joined some other payments companies that have experienced the wrath, or panic, of investors on news that their relationship with their largest customer was threatened. Shares of Minnetonka, Minn.-based Digital River plunged 22.7%, falling $5.80 to close at $19.71, after …

AcquiringBy Jim DalyVolumes have been written about how Apple Pay benefits, or doesn’t benefit, consumers, merchants, card issuers, and even payment networks. But what about merchant acquirers? Train a cold eye on the new Apple Pay mobile-payment service for Apple Inc.’s recently introduced iPhone 6 models and the upcoming Apple …

Three years after the Durbin Amendment took effect, the law’s painful impact on the cost of selling soda, candy, newspapers, and other small-ticket items remains an issue. And things may stay that way unless the newly elected Congress acts after taking office at the turn of the year, observers say. …

Square Inc.’s 6-month-old cash-advance product, Square Capital, has distributed $75 million to some 15,000 small businesses, the San Francisco-based payments company announced via Twitter this week. Further, merchants that have accepted the advances have processed in excess of $1 billion in sales through Square, the company said. It also pointed …

With financial institutions lending less to small businesses, new, technology-based companies are moving into merchant lending to fill the void. This is a market typically served by so-called merchant cash-advance firms, companies that lend money in the form of advances against a merchant’s expected credit card volume. In many cases, …

Driven mostly by higher surcharges, average out-of-network ATM fees set a record in 2014 for the eighth straight year. Plus, the average overdraft fee, now $32.74, set a record for the 16th consecutive year, according to Bankrate Inc.’s annual study of checking-account pricing. Total out-of-network ATM fees are up 5.3% …

  Mobile POS services, integrated software, and migration to the EMV standard are all influencing sales of terminals. Cast aside any preconceptions about the imminent demise of the standalone point-of-sale terminal. That venerable device, which symbolizes payments in the minds of consumers—and recurring revenue for payments professionals—is not going away …

With non-stop data breaches and the coming of EMV chip cards, virtual currency, and mobile wallets, payments seemed to be all over the news in 2014. Here’s our annual review of the top issues in electronic payments. They all defy a soundbite solution. Heading toward its close, 2014 seemed to …