Acquiring

• Starbucks Corp. said JPMorgan Chase & Co. by year’s end will issue a Visa-branded Starbucks reloadable prepaid card that will allow cardholders to earn Starbucks “stars,” or loyalty points, for purchases just about anywhere Visa is accepted; the new card is an extension of Starbucks’ relationship with JPMorgan Chase’s …

By Eugene Rome   Merchant-service providers of all shapes and sizes learn the hard way that cutting corners by using cut-and-paste tactics to create a merchant agreement can end up in costly litigation. Independent sales organizations, third-party processors, and payment facilitators must have a merchant agreement that is tailored to …

• NCR Corp. says its Epsilon payments application received EMV certification from First Data Corp., enabling the app to process credit and debit EMV transactions in its Radiant POS and StorePoint POS products. • Former Merchant Customer Exchange LLC chief executive Dekkers L. Davidson joined the InStream Inc. board of directors. …

Independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and point-of-sale software developers facing the daunting task of certifying their unique products for EMV payment acceptance may face costs starting at $30,000. That figure, which comes from Andrey Tikhonov, senior director of payment technology at Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based Infinite Peripherals Inc., reflects the …

Two mobile point-of-sale system providers are doing their part in the proliferation of such systems with the release of Click a Waiter Inc.’s white-label POS system and Aspex LLC’s deal with Frontier Airlines to provide an onboard POS system. Leominster, Mass.-based Click a Waiter Tuesday released a white-label version of …

  Most businesses thrive on referrals from existing clients, but acquirers and independent sales organizations get a surprisingly paltry number of referrals from the merchants they process for. In fact, fewer than 1% of merchants refer other merchants to their transaction servicer, even in the face of rewards such as …

• Dissident shareholder Harvest Capital Strategies LLC, owner of 7.8% of prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp., nominated three director candidates for election at Green Dot’s upcoming annual shareholder meeting. Green Dot issued a statement saying it had recently offered Harvest Capital the opportunity to appoint one director immediately and …

• Merchant processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc. announced an integration of its Portico Gateway with Computop Paygate in an arrangement that will give Heartland merchants access to international payments. Heartland is set to be acquired this spring by Global Payments Inc. in a $4.3 billion cash-and-stock deal announced in December. …

• Visa Inc. unveiled a new interactive button for its Visa Checkout online and mobile commerce service that allows shoppers to complete an online purchase by sliding a virtual image of their credit, debit or prepaid card across the screen of a smart phone, tablet, or laptop. • Visa will have its …

• In-store mobile payments made with wallets enabled with near-field communication will total nearly $240 billion worldwide by 2021 as mobile-wallet competition intensifies and the contactless-payment infrastructure matures, predicts researcher Strategy Analytics. • Closed-loop gift card provider SVM LP acquired 1to1 Card, a prepaid card management-services firm for incentive, loyalty and …