Economy

The hotel industry successfully introduced “resort fees.” The airlines gradually added baggage-handling fees. Cell phone and cable TV marketers steadily increase fees for expanding services.

In light of recent Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council recommendations regarding advanced encryption, acquirers and processors are giving greater attention to the hardware-security module used to protect card data while transactions are processed, a technician who specializes in security devices suggests.

Mobile-payment proponents let out a collective groan when Apple Inc.’s latest iPhone 4S lacked a Near Field Communication chip.

The United States remains in a balance-sheet slowdown: overleveraged households are tightening their belts and holding back on consumption, thereby choking off the economy's main engine.

Based on a groundswell of optimism surrounding Near Field Communication payment applications on display this week at the Cartes & IDentification conference in Paris, executives at NXP Semiconductors are eager to counter criticism from some quarters that NFC is too complex and bank-centric to catch on widely.

ISOs and agents can offer merchants new technological tools to help ease the task of complying with Payment Card Industry data-security standards.

While it seems natural that retention rates might decline after a merchant portfolio changes hands, purchasers have found ways of keeping losses to a minimum. What matters most is maintaining continuity so merchants have no reason to switch to another processor, sources suggest.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council intends to zero in on e-commerce, cloud computing and risk management.

VeriFone Systems Inc. took another step Nov. 14 in its quest to break free of the constraints of the aging plastic card.

VeriFone Systems Inc. is buying European payment and gateway services provider Point, the terminal maker announced Nov. 14.

Alternative-payments providers such as PayPal Inc., ProPay Inc., Square Inc. and SparkBase Inc. may be better-positioned than the payment card networks to cause the marketplace disruption needed to make mobile payments more mainstream, an Aite Group analyst suggests in a new report.

Near the end of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s one-day payments symposium Sept. 26, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Jamie Henry posed a question that had yet to be answered during the previous eight hours.

Global Cash Access Holdings Inc.’s revenue and net income continued to decline in the third quarter as a result of losing its largest customer, Harrah’s Entertainment, late in 2010, the company announced Nov. 9.

LAS VEGAS–Will mobile phones replace plastic payments cards?

LAS VEGAS–It may be too early to tally the numbers from new, lower debit-interchange rates that took effect Oct. 1, but three of the nation’s largest merchants already are sending signals that the new debit-pricing structure appears unlikely to boost their bottom lines.

A group of U.S. senators on Nov. 9 introduced legislation that would allow states to cap credit card interest rates, which they say are reaching “extortion” rates for some consumers.

Executives at Ingenico SA see an opportunity to boost the France-based payment-terminal maker’s market share in North America, where a shake-up has occurred over the past few months involving the region’s top two vendors.

Cardtronics Inc. on Nov. 7 reported second-quarter revenues of $165.1 million, up 21% from $136.6 million during the same period ended Sept. 30 last year. Net income rose 127%, to $46.8 million from $20.6 million.

LAS VEGAS–Debit card programs will continue to play a vital role in most large banks’ profit strategies for the foreseeable future, despite new government-mandated debit-interchange rates that have cut deeply into issuers’ debit revenues, executives at several large banks told attendees here at the ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum Nov. 3.

LAS VEGAS–The same criteria financial institutions used to determine a debit network partnership before the Durbin amendment still should apply in its aftermath, network executives agreed here Nov. 2 at SourceMedia’s annual ATM, Debit & Prepaid forum.