Economy

A company that helps e-commerce merchants take domestic and international payments is looking for ISOs to promote its platform.

Amazon launched its virtual currency, Amazon Coins, giving all U.S. Kindle Fire tablet owners $5 worth of free coins in their Amazon accounts and discounts for purchasing more in bulk.

Typically, I don't cover or analyze so-called payments innovations that merely embrace and extend the legacy infrastructure, but a new middleware startup, CardFlight, could actually operate as a payments "air traffic controller" because its code sits directly between the consumer and the processor.

Simon Haslam is becoming president and CEO of Elavon at a time of extreme stress for payments processors, which face nimble competitors, new payment standards and high-profile security risks.

Newtek Business Services, a New York-based national super-ISO, intends to expand its stable of 10 or so active independent sales organizations to as many as 250.

Facebook Connect is an increasingly prevalent way for Internet users to skip registration for other websites by using their Facebook credentials instead — and to WePay, it's also a tool for fighting payment fraud.

New POS schemes bring uncertainties. Merchants need partners who can help them scale their solutions while growing sales and increasing customers.

Through a partnership with Bitcoin payment processor BitPay Inc., Gyft now accepts bitcoins for its mobile gift card product. This extends the virtual currency's reach to more than 50,000 retail locations.

MasterCard delivered its biggest commitment to financial inclusion to date, announcing the rollout of 13 million smart cards that would also serve as national identity cards for Nigerians.

Advantage Refreshments knows its vending machines look just like those operated by rivals, so it's trying to attract repeat business with a loyalty program from payments hardware maker USA Technologies.

Koupah, which is providing a new point of sale card acceptance tablet, aims to offset credit card transaction fees with ads.

CardFlight aims to make in-person purchases easier by enabling merchants to accept swiped card payments within their own mobile apps.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is introducing a security credential for people who set up transaction services for merchants.

Newtek Business Services, a New York-based national super-ISO, intends to expand its stable of 10 or so active ISOs to as many as 250.

Simplee uses a personal financial management-style system with payment capabilities to help healthcare providers cut costs by making bill payments more straightforward.

Paidpiper Inc., once a poster child of MasterCard Inc.'s push to work with small developers, is finally ready to launch its product — without its previous reliance on MasterCard.

Revel Systems Inc. is launching a system that adds security to swiped card payments by displaying the accountholder's photo on its iPad-based point of sale terminal.

Alpha Payments Cloud is aiming to make the deployment of payments technology more flexible, thus allowing companies to adopt new payments products at a faster pace.

Two payments technology veterans are working on a mobile wallet that would not require changes to the hardware and software at the point of sale.

Two payments technology veterans are working on a mobile wallet that would not require changes to the hardware and software at the point of sale, and they plan to split the resulting fees with ISOs.