ISO & Agent

"Shopping is boring," says ShopSavvy CEO John Boyd. His company is working with Capital One to turn the stale process of buying a product off the shelf into an eventful experience built around a mobile wallet.

First Data is providing the technology that underpins Foursquare's recent enhancements to its deals service, which allows credit and debit card holders to link their accounts to Foursquare's social network.

Many merchants still don't take credit or debit cards, usually because of the cost. Two-year-old Plastiq aims to help these holdouts by shifting the cost of card acceptance to the consumer.

Merchant-funded rewards provider fisoc hopes the communal element of Facebook mixed with special card offers can drive repeat payments volume for small merchants focused on their local communities.

Bitcoinstore, an online seller of computers, monitors, cameras and other electronics, opened for business recently with the promise of undercutting competitors who accept only conventional payments.

Small businesses are often the toughest sell for payments automation, and WePay is attempting to boost its penetration into this market by offering a new native app for iOS that enables remote invoicing and credit-card charging.

Affirm, the new mobile payments company that counts PayPal co-founder Max Levchin among its own founders, is already drawing buzz—and some head-scratching over certain aspects of its business model.

Merchant Warehouse announced it is adding a former VeriFone executive, Greg Cohen, as chief revenue and strategy officer.

Consumers are notoriously reluctant to choose new payment habits. This week, LevelUp and 20 retailers forced the issue by taking away their choice. The "credit card diet," which took place Feb. 26, involved 20 retailers in Boston and Washington D.C. They all refused credit cards for one day.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has positioned its merchant processing unit to provide far more services to merchant clients through its 10-year partnership with Visa Inc., a deal which potentially shifts more power to the issuer.

Independent ATM deployers worry about further reductions in interchange income, network mandates over accepting EMV cards and the possibility of another surge in lawsuits against them — this time over failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to a recent survey.

JPMorgan Chase plans to launch Chase Merchant Services, a payments partnership with Visa, this year.

Visa is making several moves to demonstrate that it is willing to adopt new payments products on the Visa network. In an interview with PaymentsSource, Matt Dill, head of global business development and emerging products for Visa, provides a look into the card brand's future.

At the Apple Store, people don't pay the same way they do everywhere else. They swipe cards on mobile devices and accept emailed receipts instead of printed ones. Now that Google is reportedly kicking the tires on a retail store concept, maybe it can do the same, putting Google Wallet in the spotlight.

PayPal Inc. plans to launch a chip-and-PIN version of its mobile card reader, called PayPal Here, in the UK this summer.

Square's sales pitch has largely been based on the ease of plucking its mobile card reader of a retail store's shelf and suddenly being able to accept swiped card payments. But for some merchants, it hasn't been so easy.

VeriFone Systems Inc. shares tumbled as much as 35 percent after the maker of credit-card terminals forecast second-quarter profit that missed analysts’ estimates, amid weak economic conditions in Europe.

Square Inc. is introducing hardware designed to work with its mobile-payment software, seeking to replace cash registers by companies including NCR Corp. and stepping up competition with eBay Inc. and Intuit Inc.

Many merchant payment systems lack the technology needed to safely store card data, resulting in 70% of merchants not meeting data security requirements, a new report says.

Card issuers are increasingly using social networks, coupons and rewards to boost mobile payments, but it’s a plan that can backfire if the initiatives get the wrong mix of marketing, demographics and delivery channels.