Technology

The medical marijuana market once represented a new opportunity for merchant processors, but it dried up almost overnight when the major U.S. credit card networks more or less banned them from processing such sales — even in states where it is legal.

Isis, the mobile-payment venture backed by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, won't debut by the end of September as planned, extending delays for a service once expected to start by the end of June.

ACI Worldwide has agreed to buy Distra, a payments software provider, for roughly $48.8 million in cash.

American card issuers and acquirers are "dragging their feet" on the transition to the EMV chip card standard, but some companies hope to speed the transition by making a clear business case for the technology.

Verifi, a payments gateway and risk management provider for online merchants, intends to reduce the friendly-fraud chargebacks these merchants face by using Jumio's payment card scanning technology.

The major banks have already committed to e-payment systems like clearXchange and Fiserv's Popmoney, but that doesn’t matter to PaidThx — its system does not rely on bank participation, and will eventually be marketed to the underbanked.

Loomis Armored U.S. is now an armored courier service provider for Fifth Third Bank's currency processing.

Billhighway, a 13-year-old Troy, Mich.-based firm that offers accounting, cash management and payment processing to nonprofit firms, plans to join the fray with a mobile payment option of its own.

ShopKeep POS, a small independent sales organization, is capturing the attention of companies big and small. Earlier this month, it worked with PayPal to test a mobile-payment system, and today it announced plans with Dwolla and SCVNGR's LevelUp.

The traditional payment terminal's future took another hit this week with ShopKeep POS announcing plans to integrate Dwolla and LevelUp mobile payments into its iPad-based checkout system.