Merchant

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council will update all three of its standards this year, and it eventually may place all on a three-year update cycle, says Bob Russo, the council’s general manager.

The potential to outfit 1.5 million vending machines with payment card readers has enticed Apriva, a wireless payment-services company, to start Apriva Vend, a cashless-payment service, the company announced today.

Convenience-store operators this month are launching a fresh campaign for interchange-rate reform with an interactive, animated Web video designed to explain to consumers how credit and debit card interchange fees hurt them economically.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has a new bank-sponsor agreement with Bancorp Bank of Wilmington, Del.

VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s upcoming VX point-of-sale terminals will be upgradeable to future Payment Card Industry security standards, the terminal maker says.

Two operators of a mortgage modification scam in California were sentenced last week to a year in jail and four years probation and must repay more than $32,000 to three dozen victims - a sum that could increase if more victims come forward.

Though some merchants experienced severe financial difficulties during the recession and some went out of business, many others made prudent business decisions and scaled back spending to remain operational, Glenn S. Goldman, president and CEO of Capital Access Network Inc., told PaymentsSource this week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.

Hoping to take advantage of what it says is a growing popularity of ‘virtual’ gift cards that use card numbers but no plastic, gift card processor TenderCard is offering independent sales organizations the ability to sell merchants Giftango Corp.’s virtual gift card system.

Why are best practices so important to ISOs? For many, they are an effective means to ensure uniformity and help increase visibility into company operations to ease merchant concerns.

Acculynk Inc., which enables merchants to accept PIN-debit purchases online, is broadening its offerings to include online card processing and is making its products available for resale through ISOs, the company announced last week.