Merchant

North American Bancard’s decision to hire Deutsche Bank Securities is to “explore the opportunity to strategically align ourselves with financial partners to pursue any opportunities,” Marc Gardner, the independent sales organization’s president, tells PaymentsSource. North American Bancard earlier this week announced the Deutsche Bank hiring.

Traumatized by shrinking retirement assets and home values - job losses, too - consumers continue to dramatically cut spending while juggling their monthly bills to stay afloat.

CompuCredit Corp., an Atlanta financial services company, confirmed it will lay off more than 300 collection agents and supervisors in two Atlanta area collection call centers that will be closed by March 31, a spokesperson said late today.

JetPay LLC, a Carrollton, Texas-based payment processor, says it has won a trademark-infringement issue involving its Web site address, www.jetpay.com.

Newtek Business Services Inc., a New York-based payments company, says it has refinanced a $15 million line of credit with Capital One N.A.

VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s Payware Mobile payment software for Apple Inc.’s iPhone is available from Apple’s iTunes store, the San Jose, Calif.-based terminal maker says.

The world’s largest payment-terminal manufacturers expect to see a modest uptick in demand this year after a lengthy, recession-driven sales slump. France-based Ingenico, along with U.S.-based VeriFone Holdings Inc. and Hypercom Corp., all are cautiously optimistic about this year’s sales outlook, partly because of new data-security mandates that will require certain merchants to replace existing terminals.

American Payment Systems increased compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard among its roughly 1,200 merchant clients to 48% currently from roughly 10% Oct. 1 with a phone-call campaign, according to the Omaha, Neb.-based independent sales organization.

Merchant Data Systems Inc., a Miami Beach, Fla.-based independent sales organization, has bought ISO Merchant Services, an ISO with 1,300 merchants, Merchant Data Systems announced this week. Terms were not disclosed.

U.S. Bancorp's merchant acquiring operations are getting into Mexico on the ground floor.