2013 So Far: The Biggest Headlines in Payments Technology

June 27, 2013 8:35 PM

New Year 2013

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(Image: ThinkStock)

Scott Thompson, president and chief executive officer of PayPal Inc., speaks during an event at company headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011. PayPal, the online-payment service owned by eBay Inc., will double its revenue to $6 billion to $7 billion by 2013, Thompson said today during a meeting with analysts. Photographer: Kim White/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** Scott Thompson

Kim White/Bloomberg

PayPal/Discover Deal Goes Live

PayPal and Discover threw the switch on a deal that makes it possible for any Discover merchant to accept payments from a PayPal account. The arrangement vastly expands PayPal's reach at the point of sale. (Image: Bloomberg News)

Customers sit inside a Starbucks Corp. outlet in Shanghai, China, on Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013. China's consumer prices rose 2 percent in January from a year earlier while the producer-price index dropped 1.6 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Starbucks' Stunning Stats

Starbucks, long seen as a pioneer in mobile payments, has begun to boast impressive results for its mobile payments app. It handles $4.5 million in mobile payments a week over 10% of its U.S. payments are made from a phone. (Image: Bloomberg News)

A $1.4 Billion Bet on Prepaid

The payments processor TSYS put up $1.4 billion to buy the prepaid card marketer NetSpend, a bold move that also marks the first time the 30-year-old processor will sell a product directly to consumers. Pictured: TSYS Chairman, CEO Phil Tomlinson

Surcharges Start

As of January 27, the card networks now allow merchants to hit consumers with a checkout fee for using a credit card. The concession is part of the $7.2 billion swipe-fee settlement, which is still awaiting approval. (Image: ShutterStock)

Square Takes Shape

Square isn't sitting still. The company unveiled its first major hardware revision this year, redesigned its mobile app, and expanded into Japan.

David Marcus, president of PayPal Inc. poses for a photograph with a new chip-and-pin payment device for small businesses at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. The Mobile World Congress, where 1,500 exhibitors converge to discuss the future of wireless communication, is a global showcase for the mobile technology industry and runs from Feb. 25 through Feb. 28. Photographer: Angel Navarrete/Bloomberg *** Local Caption *** David Marcus

Angel Navarrete/Bloomberg

PayPal Here Goes Over There

Most mobile card readers from U.S. companies don't support chip-and-PIN payments. PayPal began offering a chip-and-PIN reader as part of its strategy for the U.K. Pictured: PayPal President David Marcus (Image: Bloomberg News)

Virus and hacking concept

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Processors Targeted

Processors are juicy targets for hackers, and in May EnStage and ElectraCard Services were revealed to be the targets of a $45 million prepaid card crime spree. (Image: ThinkStock)

The JPMorgan Chase & Co. logo is displayed at the company's offices in New York, U.S., on Thursday, April 11, 2013. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank by assets and the top investment bank by fees, is questioning the so-called universal bank model's future. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Chase Merchant Services

JPMorgan Chase and Visa began a 10-year partnership called Chase Merchant Services, which JPMorgan Chase described as an initiative that lets it build direct relationships with merchants. (Image: Bloomberg News)

MasterCard logos appear on credit and debit cards arranged for a photograph in New York, U.S., on Thursday, July 30, 2009. MasterCard Inc., the world's second-biggest payment-card network, posted profit that beat analysts' estimates as the company raised fees and processed more transactions. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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MasterCard's E-Wallet Fee

MasterCard made headlines with its planned "staged wallet fee," which requires companies like PayPal to pay a fee if they place their digital wallet between the merchant and the card network. (Image: Bloomberg News)

Light at End of Tunnel

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Big Departures...

Many CEOs left their companies this year, including VeriFone's Doug Bergeron, Diebold's Thomas Swidarski and Groupon's Andrew Mason. Square lost several execs, including co-founder Tristan O'Tierney and COO Keith Rabois. (Image: ThinkStock)

Mid section view of a businessman and a businesswoman shaking hands

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...And Big Arrivals

Visa hired former JPMorgan Chase exec Ryan McInerney to be its president and put other execs in new roles. First Data hired Frank Bisignano, also a JPMorgan Chase exec, to be its CEO. JPMorgan Chase, in turn, hired former Elavon president and CEO Mike Passilla to be CEO of merchant services. American Express named a new CFO in Jeffrey Campbell. (Image: ThinkStock)

Bieber and Branding

Prepaid card companies are notorious for their celebrity endorsements, and the big one this year was Justin Bieber's agreement to promote the SpendSmart card for BillMyParents. Shortly after Bieber began promoting the company, BillMyParents changed its name for the third time in four years to SpendSmart Payments Co.

Fincen Takes On Bitcoin

The digital currency Bitcoin seemed to live outside of regulators' scope until Fincen weighed in. If a business handles bitcoins, it should be regulated as a money services business, Fincen said in March.

MasterPass' Big Splash

MasterCard announced its digital wallet, MasterPass, in February. By June, the card network had entered a deal with the small-business service provider Web.com that made MasterPass a payment option at "tens of thousands" of merchant websites.

Credit card chip in blue

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EMV Shift Meets Its Mark...

Acquirer processors faced a deadline of April 1 to be able to handle EMV-chip card transactions, and "most" were ready by that time, according to Visa. (Image: ThinkStock)

credit cards

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...But Debit Code Goes Undecided

The industry is struggling to decide on a common routing code for EMV debit card transactions. Some are starting to expect they will need to juggle three codes from Visa, MasterCard and Discover. (Image: ThinkStock)