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Top executives at MasterCard Inc. on Thursday trumpeted the card network’s gains with MasterPass, its digital wallet, and downplayed the impact of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s ongoing conversion to Visa Inc. Introduced two years ago, MasterPass is now operating in 10 countries with “tens of thousands” of merchants and will …
Read More »Having Built Its Own Processing Platform, TransFirst Prepares for a Partial IPO
The big merchant acquirer TransFirst Inc. gave notice Wednesday that it is planning a partial initial public offering. Hauppauge, N.Y.-based TransFirst filed a registration statement, or S-1, with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing its IPO plans and putting a tentative value of $100 million on the deal. The filing says …
Read More »Big Man on Campus: Heartland Pays $375 Million for Higher-Education Payments Company TouchNet
Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is paying $375 million to expand its position as a higher education payments provider. The Princeton, N.J.-based processor announced today it bought Lenexa, Kansas-based TouchNet Information Systems Inc. Heartland says this is its highest-priced acquisition to date. TouchNet provides a variety of payment services to …
Read More »Amazon Dongle Unconfirmed, But E-Commerce Giant Could Rely on Powerful Assets
Amazon.com Inc. on Monday refused to comment on a report that the big online retailer is preparing to launch a mobile card reader to compete with Square Inc., PayPal Inc., and dozens of other vendors. “We can’t comment on rumors and speculation,” an Amazon.com spokesperson told Digital Transactions News by …
Read More »Eye on Mobile: Zing’s Register Stresses Integrations; Amazon Blesses PayPal for Fire
The arms race in the tablet-based point-of-sale market heated up on Friday with Zing’s launch of its Register application. Built for Apple Inc.’s iPad, the software-as-a-service product includes integrations with e-commerce platform Bigcommerce and email-marketing provider MailChimp on top of the expected payment-processing services. Further integrations with Intuit Inc.’s QuickBooks …
Read More »Tokenization Plays the Central Role in Visa’s New Cloud Payment Suite
Visa Inc. moved on Thursday to commercialize mobile payments using cloud-based near-field communication technology with its release of Visa Cloud Payment Solutions. A related development, the announcement of the upcoming debut of a tokenization service, is aimed at locking down cloud-based NFC and other digital payments. The new services include …
Read More »Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s Deal for First American Underscores Profitability of Merchant Processing
An investment consortium led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is buying First American Payment Systems L.P., a Fort Worth, Texas-based payment processor and independent sales organization, in a deal that observers say highlights the profitability of merchant processing, despite ongoing margin pressure. First American says the Toronto-based pension …
Read More »Another Zero Option: Cloud-based POS Provider Pose Drops Its Software Fee
Pose POS Ltd., a cloud-based point-of-sale system, has changed its pricing model to a free one, at least for the monthly fee. Formerly $49 a month for the POS service, Pose now charges nothing to use its app, which is available on any device that can operate Google Inc.’s …
Read More »Twitter, Facebook Make Payments Moves, But Do They Threaten Payments Firms?
Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. both made moves in the electronic-payments space this week, but analysts question whether the giant social networks are preparing frontal assaults on the payments industry. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook on Thursday revealed that it is testing a “Buy” button that will let members buy products directly …
Read More »Visa Revamps Its Online Wallet, And Gives It a New Name: Visa Checkout
Visa Inc. says its new online payment service, Visa Checkout, should help improve conversion rates for e-commerce retailers by making it easier for consumers to pay. The service, available in the United States, Canada and Australia, enables consumers to pay online on any device, Visa says. Visa Checkout replaces the …
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