News

May, 2013

• 28 May

  Visa, MasterCard File Suit As Credit Card Settlement Spawns More Litigation

    World War I was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. It didn’t, of course. And the settlement announced last July that was supposed to end lawsuits over bank card interchange and related network rules not only is failing to end litigation between merchants and the card …
• 23 May

  Citing Fraud Risk, the FTC Seeks to Bar Telemarketers from Using Four Payment Methods

    If the Federal Trade Commission has its way, all telemarketers will be banned from using remotely created checks and three other payment methods in any transaction. The sweeping ban, which the FTC posted this week in a proposed rulemaking, would also prohibit telemarketers from collecting payment via remotely created …
• 22 May

  A New Mercedes-Benz App Enables Loan Payments on Mobile Devices with Wheels

    n The purpose of the new “My MBFS” app is to increase customer convenience and continue Mercedes-Benz’s leadership in applying mobile-commerce technology to automobiles, Matt Darrah, manager of B2C digital marketing at Mercedes-Benz n “At Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, we have had this mobile journey, we saw mobile coming in …
• 22 May

  How Mobile Check Capture Is Taking a Toll on Banks’ Branch Networks

  The primary reason consumers and small-business owners visit banks is to cash or deposit checks, but mobile capture removes that purpose, says Gary Brand, director of source capture optimization at Fiserv Inc., a Brookfield, Wis.-based vendor of processing technology for financial institutions. “Something’s really happened, all of a sudden [banks …
• 22 May

  As a Key Deadline Nears, Credit Card Interchange Settlement Inspires a Raft of Rhetoric

    The rhetoric spewing from partisans on both sides of the massive credit card interchange-litigation settlement is heating up as a major deadline in the 8-year-old case approaches. May 28 is the last day the court overseeing the case will let merchants opt out of their share of monetary damages …
• 21 May

  Google Checkout, Once a PayPal Rival, Will Shut Down in Six Months As Google Pushes Wallet

    The nearly 7-year-old Google Checkout online payment service, once touted as a rival to PayPal, will cease operations in November, Google Inc. announced in a blog post on Monday. In the post, online-search kingpin Google Inc. says it is “retiring” Checkout as part of a “transition to Google Wallet,” …
• 21 May

  LevelUp Sweetens a Merchant’s Loyalty Program And Adds NCR As a Point-of-Sale Partner

  A plan to expand its footprint in mobile payments by offering white-label applications to merchants is quickly paying dividends for LevelUp, the mobile-payments unit of Boston-based SCVNGR Inc. Washington D.C.-based Sweetgreen, a 17-location chain of organic salad shops, has become the first LevelUp merchant to roll out a branded mobile-payment …
• 17 May

  ISOs’ Authorization Costs Decline, But Other Processing Expenses Are on Their Way Up

    Good news for independent sales organizations: authorization costs continued their long-term decline over the past two years, according to a recent industry survey. Not-so-good news: clearing and settlement costs have stopped declining, customer-service costs are rising, and processors are eyeing new fees to generate revenues from ISOs. Omaha-based The …
• 16 May

  Google Issues Flurry of Wallet News, But No Version 2.0 So Far

    Google Inc. released a trio of announcements on Wednesday concerning its Google Wallet mobile-payments application, but even taken together these did not add up to the major overhaul of the product that Google promised last fall. Google’s news included: a Wallet-based person-to-person payments service that works with Gmail, Google’s …
• 15 May

  Tablet-Based Launches Come with Pricing Deals to Attract Merchants

    The nascent trend toward tablets as cash-register replacements took several big steps forward this week, as technology players and at least one processor unveiled major promotions, including free transaction processing and other pricing deals, to entice small businesses to adopt mobile payments. On Wednesday, merchant processor Vantiv Inc. launched …