Merchant

China UnionPay cardholders beginning in March may use their cards with online retailers based in Taiwan under an agreement the card organization reached on Feb. 8 with Taiwan’s National Credit Card Center, which is responsible for the interbank settlements of credit card transactions between card-issuing banks and retail merchants’ banks.

In a promotion taking place in New York, consumers may act on their impulses using mobile tags, such as bar codes and QR codes, to not only shop around with their camera phones but also to initiate purchases while riding in certain taxis.

A small restaurant in Park City, Utah, figures to play a big role in determining how card networks prove suspected card data security breaches and whether card processors rightfully can deduct funds from merchant accounts–without telling the merchants–to cover their own network fines for breaches allegedly stemming from a client not complying with Payment Card Industry data-security standards.

At first, Heartland Payment System Inc.’s insistence it would give its merchant clients 100% of the savings from new, reduced debit-interchange rates sounded like a public relations move. But some observers weren’t convinced the processor would stick to its guns if that philosophy didn’t equate to solid financial numbers.

Richard Braddock has been a leader at a couple of well-known companies. He’s now leading a company designed to be anonymous.

Three months into a new rule capping debit card interchange fees, market leader Visa Inc. is showing a modest slowdown in its U.S. debit business, but nothing on the order of the doomsday scenarios once predicted.

India’s widespread highway network soon could see the installation of an electronic toll-collection system that would use radio frequency identification technology for accepting payments.

To improve merchant and consumer comfort with online spending, MasterCard Worldwide has formed a partnership with Silver Tail Systems Inc. to distribute Silver Tail's fraud-fighting analytics to merchants.

Bankcard customers that earn a free TV through Fiserv Inc.’s UChoose Rewards program no longer have to wait days for delivery. Now they can drive to a local Best Buy Co. Inc. store and pick it up minutes after redeeming the award.

Because 2012 represents a “feedback year” in the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council’s three-year cycle for establishing data-security standards, new council Chairman Mike Mitchell figures to absorb plenty of viewpoints about issues facing the industry along with the traditional complaints about compliance testing and costs.