Headlines:
Sheetz to Accept MC's PayPass Card Metavante Sells Unit Serving Small Plans 1st Data, Sovereign Renew Agreement Hypercom Trims '04 Estimate by a Third Bethpage CU Adds To 1st Lenders Pact
Sheetz to Accept MC's PayPass Card
MasterCard International said Monday that a second store chain had signed up to accept its PayPass contactless payment card, which transmits data by radio waves.
All of Sheetz Inc.'s 305 convenience stores - in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina - will begin accepting the cards by March 1, MasterCard said. Some of the stores also have gas pumps, and these will be equipped this spring to accept the cards.
McDonald's Corp. of Oakbrook, Ill., said in August that its U.S. restaurants that accept credit cards would also accept PayPass.
Sheetz, of Altoona, Pa., will accept the cards throughout its network partly to uphold its reputation as a "pioneer in the convenience store industry," said Louis Sheetz, its executive vice president of marketing, in MasterCard's press release. MasterCard is the leader in such cards, he said.
Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and MBNA Corp. issue PayPass cards. MasterCard began testing the cards in early 2003; the banking companies issued 16,000, to customers in the Orlando area.
MasterCard, of Purchase, N.Y., says its research shows that the contactless cards cut transaction time by about 13%, partly because signatures are not required for PayPass payments of less than $25. 
Metavante Sells Unit Serving Small Plans
Metavante Corp., an aggressive acquirer last year, has sold 401k Retirement Plan Services, an operation specializing in retirement programs for companies with fewer than 300 employees.
The buyers were Emjay Corp., a unit of Great-West Life and Annuity Insurance Co. of Greenwood Village, Colo.; and Retirement Advantage Inc. of Port Washington, Wis.
Metavante, the financial technology unit of Marshall & Ilsley Corp. of Milwaukee, announced the sale Friday. It did not disclose the price or say how the assets would be divided, though a spokesman characterized Great-West as "the majority buyer."
Great-West said Monday that it had gained 3,000 plan sponsors through its purchase and had renamed the operation it bought as Emjay Retirement Plan Services Inc. Retirement Advantage said it had bought the job of providing compliance and testing services for 1,800 wrap accounts.
Marshall & Ilsley Corp. launched the operation in 1973. Metavante said Monday that it will provide support to the buyers for a transitional period of 12 to 24 months.
Marshall & Ilsley's M&I Trust Co. was not affected by the sale and will continue to serve large retirement plans, Metavante said.
Metavante bought eight businesses last year, including NYCE Corp. of Montvale, N.J., the operator of a large electronic funds transfer network; and CheckClear LLC of Oklahoma City, which runs the Endpoint Exchange check-image exchange network.
1st Data, Sovereign Renew Agreement
First Data Corp. said Monday that it had signed a five-year renewal of an agreement with Sovereign Bank of Wyomissing, Pa., to provide merchant processing in the Middle Atlantic states through a joint venture, Sovereign Merchant Services.
It did not disclose the value of the contract.
First Data, of Greenwood Village, Colo., and the bank formed the venture in September 2001 to provide electronic payment processing products and services to merchants in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
First Data said Sovereign Merchant Services had more than 27,185 outlets, 73 million transactions, and $5.3 billion of sales last year.
The services that First Data provides for the venture include authorizations and chargebacks; reconciliation, verification, and guarantee; and point-of-sale technology. The bank, whose holding company is Sovereign Bancorp Inc. of Philadelphia, provides settlement and other banking services.
Hypercom Trims '04 Estimate by a Third
Hypercom Corp. has cut its earnings estimate for 2004 by about a third, citing a shift in the product mix and currency fluctuations, among other factors.
The Phoenix maker of point-of-sale terminals and other products forecast Dec. 20 that full-year income from continuing operations would come in at $13.4 million to $16.5 million, rather than the $21 million to $22.4 million previously projected.
Hypercom affirmed its revenue expectation of $254 million to $260 million. It said it expects lower gross margins globally. In particular, it now expects high-volume processor and fast-food restaurant contracts to show a bigger impact in the fourth quarter.
It also said the rising value of the Swedish krona would boost its consolidated cost of sales. (Hypercom has a plant in Linkoping, Sweden.)
The company said it had incurred additional operating costs as well, including $1 million to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and $1 million to $1.3 million for "2005 market opportunities."
Hypercom said the revisions do not include its reserves for a former contract with the Brazilian Health Ministry. In August the company took a $12.9 million charge against second-quarter profit because of its difficulties in collecting on a contract with the agency.
Bethpage CU Adds To 1st Lenders Pact
First Lenders Data Inc. of Austin said Monday that Bethpage Federal Credit Union expanded a year-old contract for real estate services.
First Lenders now will provide the credit union, which is based on New York's Long Island, with automated valuation models and other appraisal services.
Maria Tullo, assistant mortgage manager at Bethpage Federal, said in a press release that using a single source for such services would reduce its operating costs.
Bethpage Federal contracted for flood-related services from First Lenders in January 2004. The credit union has more than $2 billion of assets and more than 130,000 members, mostly from employers on Long Island.
First Lenders is a bundled services provider, offering a range of products and services - including credit reports, appraisals, and flood certifications - from a number of mortgage service data providers and vendors to its clients, which are banks, mortgage lenders, and credit unions.
