Merchant

Discover Financial Services is still struggling to reach “the last mile” of full U.S. merchant acceptance as many retail locations fall short in promoting the brand at the point of sale, Roger Hochschild, Discover president and chief operating officer, told analysts on Nov. 16.

First American Payment Systems LP has signed Lenoir, N.C.-based Parkway Bank as its 26th referral-bank partner, the Fort Worth, Texas-based independent sales organization announced Nov. 9.

ACA International announced Tuesday that it did not renew longtime CEO Rozanne Andersen's employment contract and has replaced her effective immediately.

In detecting merchant fraud, sometimes less is more.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit last week against Omega Business Center, a Chicago-based business, claiming it bilked consumers out of an estimated $300,000 for debt relief services it never provided.

Call it the ISO’s lament. Forced to squabble over a shrinking pool of customers in a price-oriented marketplace, merchant-service providers say they are slashing margins and scrambling for ways to differentiate their offerings.

Online merchants using CyberSource Corp., a unit of Visa Inc., for their online payment processing will be able to use Trustwave’s security-assessment services, Trustwave announced Nov. 11.

PayPal Inc.’s impending move into face-to-face transactions enabled by VeriFone Systems Inc. mobile point-of-sale terminals has the eBay unit developing a reseller program, Laura Chambers, PayPal senior director of mobile, tells PaymentsSource.

Why so many ISOs, acquirers, and point-of-sale software and hardware makers are excited about putting advanced mobile POS equipment into merchants’ hands is not difficult to grasp. Such systems may generate additional revenue not only from existing clients, but also possibly from merchants who previously could not or would not accept payment cards.

ISOs can differentiate themselves–or at least keep up with the competition–by offering merchants value-added business-to-business services that track payroll, inventory and marketing. B2B services sometimes earn ISOs a profit, but often they serve as loss leaders.