Acquiring

This is the third installment of a six-part series exploring the growing economic tensions and structural conflicts between acquirers and issuers in the bankcard business. A handful of big issuers dominate the bank card business and command the lion's share of merchant-acceptance fees. Just about everyone else in the payments …

The softening economy so far hasn't taken a big bite out of payment processors' earnings, but it is having some effects. Meanwhile, processors continue to streamline their operations, integrate acquisitions, and roll out new services. ? Reflecting the recent weakness in consumer spending, big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. …

This is the second installment of a six-part series exploring the growing economic tensions and structural conflicts between acquirers and issuers in the bank card business. All merchants are not created equal in payments. One of the industry's biggest but worst-kept secrets is that in 2003, following the settlement of …

A revenue-generating proposal that would force merchant acquirers to report their clients' card-based sales to the Internal Revenue Service was signed into law Wednesday by President Bush. The provision, which critics say will impose a costly burden on the entire acquiring business at a time when the industry is under …

U.S. credit card transaction and dollar-volume growth once again played second fiddle to debit, according to the latest financial reports from MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. And U.S. debit and still-strong international growth kept the networks' operating earnings in the black during their quarters ended June 30, although a one-time …

This article begins a six-part series by industry analyst Steve Mott that examines the growing economic tensions and structural conflicts that are drawing the acquiring side of the card processing business into a sustained battle with card issuers. Five Digital Transactions News installments assess the divergent impacts of this conflict …

Some observers speculated that the point-of-purchase, or POP, electronic-check code would go “pop” after the supposedly more merchant- and consumer-friendly back-office conversion (BOC) code debuted in March 2007, but the latest automated clearing house volume numbers show otherwise. POP posted 115.3 million transactions in the first quarter, up 48.7% from …

With an estimated 11 million point-of-sale terminals still in place in the U.S. processing card transactions on dial-up connections, processors and merchants are seeking ways to convert these devices to broadband without taking on the costs of replacing them. The latest is Transaction Network Services Inc., a Reston, Va.-based company …

International Merchant Services Inc., which has taken on all new senior management over the past 11 months, is launching a new marketing blitz this week whose underlying message might be characterized as impatience with the electronic transactions business. Hoping to accelerate the progress of promising payment technology that for a …

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee passed the controversial Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008 on Wednesday on a 19-16 vote, but with a significant change. The marked-up bill no longer includes a provision that would have established a three-judge panel to arbitrate interchange pricing should merchants and the bank …