Peppercoin Inc., a micropayments processor in Waltham, Mass., sees a potential market for transactions of small and very small values reaching into the trillions of dollars, embracing both the online and point-of-sale markets. To tap that potential, the new company is moving toward a rollout, planned for mid-summer, of a …

Authorize.net Inc., which serves as a payments gateway for 91,000 mostly mid-size and small Web-based merchants, is making a major play for the brick-and-mortar point of sale. With the backing of its new owner, Burlington, Mass.-based Lightbridge Inc., Authorize.net is revving up its marketing and re-seller efforts to expand rapidly …

A draft of a new American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for electronic exchange of checks and check data among banks and processors will be ready for ballot this summer, and could be ready for trial use this year, according to a member of the committee working on the standard. …

With at least four separate efforts under way to build national image-exchange networks, some banking officials are starting to ask whether the substantial investment banks and processors are making in these new networks to carry check images between financial institutions is really necessary. The systems required to achieve transfer of …

While various startups attack the problem of enabling payments for small-value games, songs, and other content on the Web, a working model may already have established itself in the world of mobile commerce. Seattle-based Qpass Inc., a 7-year-old company that makes software that connects content sellers to mobile operators' billing …

TransFirst, a Dallas-based merchant processor, expects its acquisition of the third-party processing business of Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions to drive down its transaction costs and give it a sharper edge when it comes to pricing. The deal, announced yesterday and expected to close April 1, will add 90 million …

MasterCard International took a $763.5 million charge against earnings in 2003 to account for its share of the settlement of the massive Wal-Mart class-action suit, documents filed yesterday reveal. As a result of the charge, the bank card association sustained a $385.8 million loss last year, compared to net income …

Lightbridge Inc., a Burlington, Mass.-based provider of software and transaction services to wireless telecommunications carriers, today announced it is buying Authorize.net for $82 million in cash in a deal expected to close by June 30. Eight-year-old Authorize.net is an American Fork, Utah-based subsidiary of InfoSpace Inc., Bellevue, Wash. It provides …

Visa USA's increase in credit card interchange rates, announced today, are intended to help the giant bank card network keep its members' business in the face of recent efforts by American Express Co. to court banks as issuers of its cards, Visa says. As expected by many observers, Visa today …

The merger of banking powerhouses J.P Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank One Corp., announced late yesterday, would create the nation's second largest credit card issuer as measured by credit outstanding, the banks' chief executives said this morning in a meeting with analysts. The combined bank would boast 95 million …