Technology

State Bank of India is increasing its domestic merchant acquiring activity with plans to deploy up to 1.5 million point-of-sale terminals for credit and debit card acceptance by March 2011, an official from the Mumbai-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has entered a $41.1 million agreement with MasterCard Inc. to settle claims stemming from the 2008 security breach of the Princeton, N.J., company's processing systems.

Financial institutions generally view fraud and regulatory pressure as their key challenges this year, according to the Pulse electronic funds transfer network’s 2010 Debit Issuer study released this week.

Despite negative economic winds and the effect of tough new regulations, credit card companies should realize there are ways to adapt and stay positive in the current environment, Peter Vaughn, senior vice president of global brand management for American Express Co. told audience members during Tuesday’s keynote speech at SourceMedia Inc.'s Card Forum and Expo in Orlando.

MasterCard Worldwide’s new tiered-interchange rates will cut Cardtronics Inc.’s ATM operating gross profit by nearly $2 million during the remainder of the year for transactions routed over MasterCard’s Cirrus network, Cardtronics said in a May 7 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

IPayment Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based payment processor, is reselling Roam Data Inc.’s RoamPay mobile-payment services, Roam Data says. RoamPay can be loaded onto cell phones and used to accept credit and debit card payments.

Interchange fees are the largest component of merchant card-acceptance fees, and the merchant lobby has been waging an aggressive political campaign to get government to curb them.

The private-equity firm Permira has reportedly teamed up with American Express Co. to bid for Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC's Global Merchant Services division, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.

Banks have devoted much of their mobile banking efforts to making apps for Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone, but a rival system may be more important to consumers who handle their finances by phone.