Credit Cards

The first order of business for the new Washington, D.C.-based merchant group formed earlier this year to lobby for regulation of card-interchange rates is to inform consumers and their representatives about the costs they incur because of interchange, says Mallory Duncan, chairman of the Merchants Payments Coalition. “Consumers don't appreciate …

Visa U.S.A. today announced that starting in October it will begin tracking cardholder transaction data at the full 16-digit account number level, allowing issuers and merchants for the first time to target unique promotions and other marketing campaigns at individuals. “Now we can enable [marketing to] a cardholder of one,” …

International Card Establishment Inc., which began offering card-processing services a few weeks ago, has signed the first independent sales organization in its ISO program. Midland, Texas-based Foresite Merchant Solutions, formed recently, is I.C.E.'s first ISO client, the company says. Foresite is signing 200 merchant accounts per month, a rate it …

Continuing its national rollout of contactless card technology, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s Chase Bank U.S.A. unit said it will begin issuing the chip-equipped cards early this month in Colorado. The announcement follows by 15 days the bank's introduction of its contactless card, which it calls “blink,” in Atlanta, the …

Addressing a longstanding complaint of independent sales organizations and other nonbank acquirers, MasterCard International has published its operating rules for what the card company calls member service providers. MasterCard says the 291-page document, entitled “Member Service Provider Rules Manual,” is now available free, and has posted a PDF for download. …

Technology that allows consumers to pay at the point of sale by waving or tapping a card or other token took a major step forward today with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s announcement that it will issue millions of cards equipped with the technology starting this summer. Following on the …

Mother's Day-related spending on jewelry and chocolates on the Internet drove a 24% increase in e-commerce volume for VeriSign Inc., to $4.4 billion, the Mountain View, Calif.-based transaction gateway for online merchants said today. Transaction volume for the company during the period measured, April 25 through May 8, jumped by …

Nashville, Tenn.-based independent sales organization iPayment Inc. today reported its revenues and processed charge volume more than doubled in the first quarter compared to the year-ago period, with much of the growth driven by a December acquisition of a merchant portfolio from First Data Merchant Services. In a conference call …

Transaction gateway Shift4 Corp. reports it processed $1.1 billion on more than 13 million transactions in March, marking the first time the company has exceeded the $1 billion level in a month. Las Vegas-based Shift4, which specializes in connecting hospitality merchants and entertainment venues to back-end processors via high-speed Internet …

Online-transaction processor PayPal Inc. processed 110.4 million transactions in the first quarter worth $6.23 billion, up 39% and 44% respectively over the year-ago period, according to figures released today by San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc., the company's parent. Of this transaction volume, some 71% came from auction activity, principally on …