Economy

Acquirers say they're signing up new merchants and retaining established customers with the help of software that bundles payment services.

The Target Corp. data breach just before the holiday shopping season triggered another round of rhetoric on the merits and shortcomings of chip-based cards. But the breach's direct effect on merchant EMV plans is largely up in the air.

Cloud-based wallets, QR code wallets and other software-based wallets seem to be shoving Near Field Communication hardware out of the spotlight. But reports of the death of NFC, which enables contactless payments from many mobile devices, have been greatly exaggerated.

Acquirers say they’re signing up new merchants and retaining established customers with the help of software that “bundles” payment services.

Chirpify founder and CEO Chris Teso's five o'clock shadow and plaid shirt identify him as one of the new breed of payments entrepreneurs. His advice to newcomers: be fearless.

ISOs and agents can lose established clients and miss out on new business if they fail to offer a full complement of loans and merchant cash advances, a vendor warns.

As more payments companies seek the next big thing, they are finding that mobile payments tech is due for a makeover, and a lot more attention surrounds digital currency such as Bitcoin.

Optimize Capital Markets has created a portal to automate capitalization deals of $2 million to $20 million. But along the way, it has found investors are not willing to part with their money in a completely automated way.

As a new year dawns, ISOs and agents are still wondering whether to regard the industry's new entrants and offerings as competitors, potential allies or a little of both.

The payments industry is full of big ideas that haven't always found the right audience. As we enter 2014, a few trends are bringing new relevance to some older technologies.

TipperCoin is attempting to combine two concepts that have faced strong headwinds in the past year: digital currency and Twitter-based payments.

Banks need startups to test the waters with new products and services, but startups need banks for their capital, infrastructure, large customer bases, established regulatory relationships and compliance training.

In the past few years, the payments industry has experienced a flood of new offerings, from consumer-facing giants like PayPal and Google to Silicon Valley startups such as Square.

Bitcoin may get the most attention, but several merchants are beginning to accept a digital currency called Litecoin, the second largest digital currency by market capitalization.

One thing appears unlikely to change for ISOs in the year ahead: the rapid rate of change itself. Innovation, competition, disruption and adaptation will continue to characterize the industry

"Operation Choke Point," the federal government's campaign against online payday lenders and collections agencies, is unjustly attacking third-party payment processors, an association official says.

As more mobile wallets experiment with alternatives to Near Field Communication, Isis stuck to its use of the contactless payment technology. But will that prove to be a winning strategy or just a payments-industry fad?

By analyzing behavior such as cell phone records, two startups have found a way to help those without bank accounts to obtain credit.