Transaction Processing

The bare-knuckled fight between leading U.S. point-of-sale terminal manufacturer VeriFone Holdings Inc. and the big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. keeps on escalating, with four lawsuits in three courts now pending. Both companies continue to crank out press releases, letters from their chief executives, and other public-relations missives that …

In a move that could change the way consumers shop and pay on the Web, a startup called Payvment is marketing a free shopping cart that lets online shoppers accumulate merchandise from a variety of Web sites?including Facebook?and then pay for all of it with a single checkout. “We call …

Electronic person-to-person payments have been around this entire decade, but they're still largely the domain of specialists such as PayPal Inc. and a host of tech companies. But leading bank processors are getting into the P2P act, and if they're successful they could spur greater usage from the consumer mainstream …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is accusing VeriFone Holdings Inc. of “tampering” with Heartland customers after the San Jose, Calif.-based terminal company said it will terminate its support relationships with Heartland customers, effective Dec. 31. VeriFone says it will offer complete alternative support at no cost to affected merchants. Heartland merchants …

Hoping to inspire a burst of innovation beyond what it could expect to deliver within its own research-and-development budget, PayPal Inc. on Tuesday officially turned its global payment engine over to software developers with an array of new application programming interfaces (APIs). With the unveiling of the APIs, which took …

Cynergy Data LLC, the big independent sales organization that filed for bankruptcy Sept. 1, got a second lease on life last week when the sale of its assets to The ComVest Group, a private-equity firm with holdings in other payment processors, closed. ComVest paid $81 million for Long Island City, …

With credit card growth sputtering, an expanding debit card market will help lift transaction processors' volumes for the foreseeable future, according to new research from Goldman Sachs & Co. The investment bank also predicts processors will find robust growth markets in nascent channels like mobile payments and established debit-related markets …

The first Visa-branded debit cards in Canada will be out in 2010's first quarter, Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Joseph W. Saunders reported late Tuesday. Saunders, reviewing Visa's financial report for fiscal 2009's fourth quarter, also told analysts that signs of recovery from recession are starting to appear in …

A sour economy isn't hobbling PayPal Inc.'s online-payments steamroller, but the downturn and the seemingly fragile recovery are creating some challenges for Bill Me Later, the online credit processor PayPal parent eBay Inc. bought a year ago and this week integrated with PayPal. Meanwhile, rumors continue to swirl around the …

Losses caused by massive fraud could bring down as many as 10 financial institutions within the next three years, predict analysts at Treasury Strategies Inc., a Chicago-based consultancy specializing in financial services. Since bank failures are usually caused by economic downturns or mismanagement, the prediction comes as a startling reminder …