Kevin Woodward

Prepaid cards are becoming a popular tool for criminals that need to manage large sums of money, according to law enforcement officials.

The Cincinnati processor hopes to double in size over the next five to 10 years, Chris Pike, a managing director at the Boston investment firm Advent International Corp., said Tuesday in an interview at the Electronic Transactions Association conference in Las Vegas.

VeriFone Holdings Inc. on April 2 announced the acquisition of TaxiTronic Inc.’s minority ownership in the VeriFone Transportation System joint venture the two companies formed in 2005.

This past weekend’s launch of Apple Inc.’s iPad also saw the introduction of Square Inc.’s payment card-acceptance application for the device.

Global Payments Inc. hopes to begin processing payment card transactions in China's currency this summer, after getting approvals from China UnionPay and the People's Bank of China.

A majority of ISO and merchant-acquiring salespeople say the nation’s latest recession had an impact on their compensation, the results of the ISO&Agent 2010 Compensation Survey show.

An Internal Revenue Service initiative announced earlier this month could spur independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers to assess how they classify their staffs, Holli Hart Targan, president of the Electronic Transactions Association, noted at the Southeast Acquirers Association conference this week in Atlanta.

FrontStream Payments Inc. will double its annual transaction-processing volume to $2 billion following last week’s acquisition of Fast Transact Inc., a Lacey, Wash.-based ISO, FrontStream CEO Emmet Seibels tells ISO&Agent Weekly.

FrontStream Payments Inc. will double its annual transaction-processing volume to $2 billion following last week’s acquisition of Fast Transact Inc., a Lacey, Wash.-based independent sales organization, FrontStream CEO Emmet Seibels tells PaymentsSource.

Gift and loyalty services company SparkBase says its deal announced this week with Apriva will expand the potential number of merchants that can accept SparkBase products.

As one of the first resellers of VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s PayWare Mobile service, Merchant 360 Inc. says some mobile merchants like that the service includes a card reader that enables them to get card-present transaction rates.

Point-of-sale terminal maker Hypercom Corp. this week reported a $624,000 fourth quarter profit, marking the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company’s third consecutive profitable quarter. Hypercom reported a $74.8 million loss for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Financial results at two point of sale terminal makers are improving, in large part because of increasing global demand for electronic payment systems.

Total System Services Inc. is moving into merchant acquiring by creating a joint venture with First National Bank of Omaha.

Though merger-and-acquisition activity has been fairly quiet in the past 18 months, activity began to pick up in the fourth quarter of 2009, says Ray Sobczyk, a senior associate and strategic acquisitions expert at the Strawhecker Group consultancy who helps merchant-portfolio buyers and sellers make deals. And the activity is expected to continue this year.

Merchants always are interested in the cost of payment card processing, but sales agents should evaluate the importance of price when listening to merchants about their needs, observers say.

JetPay LLC, a Carrollton, Texas-based payment processor, says it has won a trademark-infringement issue involving its Web site address, www.jetpay.com.

Newtek Business Services Inc., a New York-based payments company, says it has refinanced a $15 million line of credit with Capital One N.A.

VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s Payware Mobile payment software for Apple Inc.’s iPhone is available from Apple’s iTunes store, the San Jose, Calif.-based terminal maker says.

A $60M settlement between Visa and Heartland Payment Systems "has many weaknesses," according to lawyers representing Visa card issuers that could have potential claims over the 2009 data breach at the payment processor.