Economy

PayPal, having long ago charted the state-by-state regulatory waters for U.S. payments companies, is urging a reform to the rules in an effort that could ultimately help other players in its market.

In his Oct. 23, 2013, letter to the payments industry, the chairman and CEO of Heartland Payment Systems provides a compelling historical overview of the challenges faced by our industry some three decades ago.

BURLINGAME, Calif. -- If ISOs aren’t willing to transform their business models, they’ll become extinct in a payments industry bustling with aggressive, agile startups, a consultant says.

In 2012, more than 3,500 employees and family members took part in the 22nd annual Paint-a-Thon, making home and yard improvements for low-income, elderly and disabled homeowners.

The payments industry is facing pressure from outside companies that are toppling many preconceptions about how payments should work. But industry veterans are fighting back, and they shared their strategies at SourceMedia's 2013 ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum.

LevelUp is launching a "connected app" technology that lets merchants tap into its mobile payment system for online commerce and a variety of other uses.

As the market for prepaid cards expands and diversifies, many companies are experimenting to see what works — and in the process, they are learning that a product-based mindset could hold them back.

Consumers continue to view their banks as a trusted payments provider, but they view PayPal Inc. as the nonbank to trust the most.

Paychex and Biz2Credit have teamed up to offer an online loan resource center that gives small-business owners access to capital from more than 1,200 lenders.

Let’s put a stop to criminal practices in our Industry — now!

As Fexco and First Data demonstrated their futuristic ATM concept, they emphasized that the bank is at the heart of the offering. And as Lamassu demonstrated a similar device for bitcoin users, a very different message came across.

OnBudget seeks to build customer retention for prepaid cards by incorporating personal financial management tools that digitize a budgeting system popular among consumers.

Visa and MasterCard have aggressively worked to establish their V.me and MasterPass wallets since launching both products within the past year, and both companies are trying to learn from their past efforts in e-payments.

Online investment management service Betterment LLC will acquire ImpulseSave, a startup that designs software meant to encourage people to save.

Square's new P2P service, Square Cash, is meant to be so straightforward that you don't need an app to use it — but Square published an app anyway. The Square Cash app joins a growing suite of Square apps for merchants and consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission should take more steps to police the acquiring industry and halt fraudulent practices, says Robert Carr, longtime CEO of Heartland Payment Systems Inc.

The smartphone blog Android Police has discovered several latent features buried in the code underlying the software for Google’s wearable computer. Among them are panoramic image capture (suitable for check imaging), a stopwatch, and commands to play music or games.

Udi's, which operates a group of cafes and pizza establishments in the Denver area, just launched a customized mobile payments program with the goal of obtaining the data that is normally invisible to it when patrons pay with credit and debit cards.