Acquiring

Pricing is by far the biggest reason merchants cite when asked why they left their previous payment card processor, but there’s more to the attrition story than meets the eye, according to a new study by Aite Group LLC. “Pricing is only the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back,” …

The message this week from the top brass at American Express Co. is: Times are bad, but no worse at AmEx than elsewhere in the payments industry. American Express, the third-largest payment card network, is still making money, though a lot less of it: $172 million in the fourth quarter, …

As merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and federal investigators continue to probe the data breach Heartland disclosed on Tuesday, evidence is building that banks and credit unions around the country are reissuing cards on a mass scale as a likely result of the breach. That could give credence to …

Merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. reported on Tuesday that it has found malicious software on its processing system, the result of a breach that happened in 2008 but which Heartland says is now contained. The malware captured an unknown quantity of card numbers and expiration dates along with a …

Interchange, the most controversial part of credit and debit card pricing, is the subject of a background paper MasterCard Inc. posted on its Web site last week, just ahead of the inauguration on Tuesday of a new president and his administration. A MasterCard spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News the document …

Some experts have predicted that the recession would create opportunities in the merchant-acquiring businesses, especially if independent sales organizations or other merchant processors decide to sell their portfolios or seek well-capitalized partners. Those opportunities seem to be just what venture-capital firm Austin Ventures is pursuing with the creation of Century …

Merchant processor First Data Corp. bolstered its position as an up-and-coming provider of point-of-sale payment terminals today with the unveiling of one new and one retrofitted terminal in its FD line of hardware. The devices will help First Data shore up its offerings to check-accepting and multimerchant card-accepting locations. In …

This is the second installment of a six-part series on how Web 2.0 developments are likely to transform the payments business. Web 2.0 is still in its infancy, and skeptics about its business models abound. Meanwhile, most online merchants are still scrambling to shore up and extend their current Web …

Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. this week unveiled what it says is the first coverage available to small and medium-sized businesses for losses from payment card data breaches. News of the policy came on the same day that a non-profit research organization reported that data breaches increased 47% last year. The …

Independent sales organizations are in the cross hairs of at least one vendor of check-transaction processing software looking for ways to sign up more merchants for a product that lets businesses turn paper checks into images they can transmit electronically to their banks. Wausau Financial Systems Inc. this spring will …