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Merchant acquirer Moneris Solutions Inc. reported on Thursday that it has an agreement with the federal government to buy the assets of Humboldt Merchant Services, a Eureka, Calif.-based acquirer with nearly $2.5 billion in annualized charge volume, 18,000 merchants concentrated in California and other western states, and a strong network …
Read More »Payments Changes at eBay Go Well Beyond Tossing out Checks
When eBay Inc. announced its all-electronic payments policy last month, the move triggered what an eBay executive calls a “mixed” response, at best, from the online marketplace's sprawling seller community. But the policy changes go beyond banning checks and money orders on eBay. They include requirements that will force third-party …
Read More »Temperatures Rise in Canadian Merchant Protest over Card Fees
The heat over payment card interchange and debit cards in Canada is getting high enough to melt glaciers in the Yukon. A retailer group dominated by big stores, the Retail Council of Canada (RCC), on Wednesday launched a Web site called StopStickingItToUs.com in a campaign to build merchant resistance to …
Read More »PayPal’s Airline Business Gains More Altitude with Continental
Continuing its conquest of the nation's air carriers, PayPal Inc. reports that it is now accepted on Continental Airlines Inc.'s Web site. Houston-based Continental's acceptance of PayPal leaves the nation's two largest carriers, American and United, as the only big domestic holdouts. Besides newly booked Continental, which claims to be …
Read More »Merchant Gripes Led Startup Comparison Site to Focus on Processing
Widespread problems reported by small businesses with their card-processing vendors led a startup comparison-shopping Web site for business-to-business financial services to focus on transaction processing, the co-founder says. Chicago-based Transparent Financial Services LLC, which operates as a kind of Orbitz for entrepreneurs looking for financial services, plans to add health …
Read More »ISOs Hope To Influence Upcoming Merchant Reporting Regulations
It lost in Congress, so now the merchant-acquiring industry is looking to the bureaucracy to help soften the blow of a new federal reporting requirement that becomes effective in 2011. The requirement, part of the massive mortgage-relief bill President Bush signed into law a month ago, will force the card …
Read More »Eye on the Web: Biller Direct Grows, As Does U.S. Mobile Web Usage
Both biller Web sites and bank or so-called consolidator sites are gaining market share, but biller sites are growing faster, according to recent research. Sites maintained by billers will account for 13% of all consumer bill payments this year, up from 11% in 2007. Consolidator sites, meanwhile, will handle 11% …
Read More »Both Sides Claim Victory After Judge Rules in Discover’s Antitrust Case
The federal judge presiding over Discover Financial Services' antitrust case against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. for lost business from would-be financial-institution partners has disposed of pre-trial motions, setting the stage for trial in a network conflict that began a decade ago. At issue is the alleged harm to Discover …
Read More »Commercial in ’09. Visa Alerts Will Include Two-Way Messaging
Visa Inc., which on Monday announced a pilot project to deliver transaction alerts to cardholders' mobile phones and e-mail inboxes, expects to launch the service some time next year as a commercial service for its members, Visa executives say. While the pilot, which involves eight banks in the U.S. and …
Read More »The Coming PCI Update: Mostly Tweaks, but WEP Gets Whacked
The PCI Security Standards Council on Monday unveiled a preview of its soon-to-be-released Version 1.2 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard, an update the council's boss says adds no major rules. The update also will clarify existing requirements in Version 1.1, eliminate redundancies, and in general try to bring …
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