Acquiring

Having doubled its merchant base via portfolio acquisitions last year, Dallas-based processor TransFirst has created a product division aimed, it says, at introducing new services to help retain merchants and give independent sales agents more ways to relieve pressure on pricing. The first new products, which will go live in …

The nation's largest electronic funds transfer network is rejiggering its interchange pricing in an effort to penetrate new merchant categories and convert more low-value transactions?in some cases, below $10?to PIN debit. As part of a sweeping set of pricing changes to go into effect May 1, Star Networks Inc. is …

Nashville, Tenn.-based iPayment Inc., a publicly held independent sales organization processing for 125,000 small merchants, reported strong results for the fourth quarter of last year and for all of 2004, driven mainly by increased economies of scale from merchant-portfolio acquisitions. Revenue jumped to $101.4 million for the quarter and $364.2 …

Add-on pricing as well as an increase in manual items kept the fees banks and independent sales organizations pay to processors from dropping in 2004, according to a new acquirer-pricing study released today. Although most observers thought processor fees might decline somewhat last year as a result of the emergence …

American Express Co. made no pricing concessions to Walgreen's Co. to keep the pharmacy giant accepting AmEx cards, a top executive says. Responding to questions from securities analysts during a conference call yesterday to discuss AmEx's fourth-quarter and year-end 2004 results, Gary L. Crittenden, chief financial officer at the New …

Discover Financial Services Inc.'s deal with GE Consumer Finance Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will lead to a huge volume boost for Discover and help the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company offer pricing to potential issuing partners that exceeds the interchange income they can get from Visa and MasterCard, an expert observer …

Two key results of First American Payment Systems L.P.'s acquisition of National Data Funding Corp.?consummated late last year and announced last week?are that First American gains an inhouse facility for wireless, Internet Protocol-based transaction processing while R. Scott Hatfield, one of NDFC's long-time owners, can now devote himself full-time to …

Pharmacy giant Walgreen's Co., which a month ago announced it would stop accepting American Express cards effective today, has reversed itself, announcing it will continue taking AmEx cards after reaching a new multi-year deal with the card company. Terms of the new arrangement were not released. “We were able to …

Sovereign Bank has renewed a merchant-processing contract with First Data Corp., the Denver-based processor has announced. The five-year deal represents an extension of Sovereign Merchant Services, which was established in 2001 as one of a number of alliance agreements First Data has concluded with banks in which FDC provides merchant-transaction …

Nashville, Tenn.-based independent sales organization iPayment Inc. expects on Friday to close on its $130 million cash acquisition of a merchant portfolio from First Data Corp. The portfolio consists of 25,000 small merchant accounts generating $9 billion to $10 billion in annual card volume. First Data Merchant Services will continue …