Acquiring

Though merchants have been permitted since 2013 to add surcharge fees to credit card transactions, it’s only in 2016 and 2017 that the practice will become the norm, ushering in a new phase of a sometimes contentious relationship between merchants, the payment card industry, and consumers. That’s the assertion of …

• Merchant acquirer Global Payments Inc. reported net income of $69.1 million for fiscal 2016’s third quarter ended Feb. 29, up 10.4% from $62.6 million a year earlier. Revenues came in at $679.9 million, up 2.2%. Global Payments expects to complete its acquisition of Heartland Payment Systems Inc. this month. …

Of the challenges presented by the U.S. payments systems’ transition to the EMV chip card standard, one of the least reported is confusion among both consumers and merchants  caused by the sudden appearance of puzzling terminal messages. Meanwhile, new numbers indicate petroleum marketers face a daunting challenge meeting their October …

•  PayPal Holdings Inc. will not follow through on plans announced two weeks ago to expand in Charlotte, N.C., and add 400 jobs because of North Carolina’s recently enacted House Bill 2, which PayPal says “perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of …

The Florida merchants that sued all the major card networks and eight of the 10 largest bank issuers last month saw no other way to deal with the flood of chargebacks they incurred after the EMV liability shift, according to a top executive with one of the merchants and an …

• VeriFone Systems Inc. introduced Verifone Carbon, a black, portable point-of-sale system for café owners, quick-service restaurants, and stores that features a tablet screen for the merchant and a smaller screen for the customer, and a stand with a built-in printer. The Intel-powered device includes VeriFone’s cloud-based Commerce Platform that …

Do competing acquirers run a significant risk if they ignore the way Square Inc. operates? Some experts are now saying they do, though you wouldn’t think so in the light of recent events. When 6-year-old Square went public in November, the result was bloody. On the first day of trading, …

Contrary to what many may suspect, price is not the top reason retailers switch from one point-of-sale provider to another, according to a study from Capterra Inc., a business-software review site. In a survey of more than 400 merchants, 34% cited a POS system’s lack of necessary features as the …

• Braintree launched Braintree Auth as an invitation-only service in beta. The service streamlines integration of Braintree merchants with e-commerce platforms and eases the way for new payment methods enabled by Braintree, a unit of PayPal Holdings Inc. Braintree Auth currently processes payments on e-commerce platforms Bigcommerce, WooCommerce, and 3DCart. …

• The Federal Reserve picked consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to support its Faster Payments Task Force efforts this year by assessing solution proposals from various payments providers. • Merchant processor Square Inc. announced its “Build With Square,” a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that integrates point-of-sale and-online payments capabilities with …