Merchant

Giftango Corp. wants to give merchants a head start on the mobile-wallet age by placing two-dimensional barcodes on the back of their proprietary, closed-loop gift cards to enable consumers to convert the plastic to a digital format via a smartphone camera, among other capabilities.

Ingenico SA has struck a deal with a point-of-sale equipment distributor that will help it expand availability of its products in the United States, the French payment-terminal maker announced July 19.

The biggest trend in merchant acquiring this year is a concentration on developing and selling mobile card acceptance to micromerchants, a new report suggests.

Isis, the wireless carrier-led mobile-payments venture, just crossed off a relatively small but integral item on its to-do list in signing Visa Inc., American Express Co. and MasterCard Worldwide to its system.

Isis, the mobile carrier-led mobile payments venture that initially planned to compete against incumbent payment networks, now has formed relationships with them, it announced July 19.

Citigroup Inc. plans to issue chip-based credit cards that adhere to the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications later this year.

Continuing efforts to get its Serve digital wallet into consumers’ hands, American Express Co. has signed a deal with Sprint Nextel to put the payments application on the Sprint Zone website, where Sprint customers go to manage their mobile-phone accounts, Amex announced July 18.

Still on the fence about EMV? High uptake from an early adopter, the United Nations Federal Credit Union, is allowing it to expand the card's availability, and provides evidence U.S. cardholders really like to use chip and PIN cards when traveling overseas.

As the first Irish bank to promote contactless payments, The Bank of Ireland plans to use one-on-one communications with cardholders to promote the benefits of contactless payment technology when it rolls out Visa payWave cards later this year.

Supporting acceptance of electronic payments at large, international sporting events promotes higher transaction volumes among tourists for the countries that host them even after the events are over, according to a recent tourism impact report from Visa Inc.