Payment card charge volumes and merchant-processing revenues rose at several of the nation’s biggest banks during the second quarter, according to company reports as the mid-year earnings season got underway this week. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp reported Friday that its payments businesses produced 22%, or $328 million, of the company’s $1.52 …

More than 120 retailers sent a letter Tuesday to the U.S. House of Representative’s Financial Services Committee urging the panel to reconsider two measures that would repeal the Durbin Amendment in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. The bills stand virtually no chance of becoming law while Barack Obama remains president, but with …

A new National Retail Federation survey found that 57% of retailers that had installed EMV chip card terminals in their stores claim they’ve been waiting for up to six months or even longer to get their equipment certified. Conducted in May and June, the survey also found that 48% of respondents …

U.S. Bank tried, but it couldn’t make its $6.95 fee for real-time person-to-person payments stick. The nation’s fifth-largest bank by assets disclosed Wednesday that such payments are now free. The Minneapolis-based bank says it was the first to go live with real-time payments over the bank-developed clearXchange P2P payments network, …

How do consumers feel about payment card acceptance costs, often referred to as “swipe fees”? According to a recent National Retail Federation survey, consumers want the existing debit card interchange price cap to continue, and they want credit card pricing to benefit them and merchants as opposed to “credit card …

Speaking of merchant-network skirmishes, fighting between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. broke out anew last month when, citing high acceptance costs, Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit announced that it will no longer accept Visa payment cards in its stores through a gradual phase-out set to begin July 18. Wal-Mart’s carefully phrased …

It was great while it lasted, but it looks like the chip card party is over for VeriFone Systems Inc., the leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, at least for now. The U.S. conversion to EMV chip cards had produced a North American revenue windfall for VeriFone over the past couple …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday filed a counterclaim against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alleging that the retailer’s May lawsuit against the network is not an issue involving violations of federal regulations regarding debit cards, as Wal-Mart cast it, but a contract dispute. Visa says Wal-Mart “fraudulently induced” it to sign an acceptance …

Citigroup Inc. on Wednesday announced it has struck a definitive agreement to sell its institutional Prepaid Card Services unit to Munich, Germany-based Wirecard AG. The deal is significant in that it will give Europe’s second-largest payment processor a toehold in the U.S., and it marks the retreat by another big …

The Kroger Co. on Monday sued Visa Inc. over the network’s alleged efforts to force the nation’s leading grocery-store chain to route EMV chip debit card transactions over Visa’s network by having customers sign for purchases rather than enter PINs. Kroger, the largest retailer after Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to …