Economy

The drumbeats are growing louder for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take action on reloadable prepaid cards.

With mobile-payment technology advancing quickly, the demise of plastic payment cards might seem near. But that’s not so, experts agree.

Surcharge-free ATMs. The very phrase holds the power to frighten the bravest of cash-machine deployers.

Companies are getting better at recovering from data breaches, but the risks of a major incident remain as high as ever.

First Data Corp. is giving the name “Universal Commerce” to the company’s campaign to combine online and offline shopping and loyalty rewards.

A recent acquisition is enabling Trustwave to add malicious-software detection to the data-security scans the company performs to check compliance with Payment Card Industry data security standards.

Speculation about one of the world’s largest payment processors going public in early 2012 had potential investors humming last summer. On March 22, Vantiv Inc. turned eight months of speculation into reality with its initial offering on the New York Stock Exchange, expected to raise $500 million for the Cincinnati-based processor.

Square Inc. is posing the latest threat to the payment industry status quo, as point-of-sale transactions begin to move from cash registers to mobile phones.

Agents should use their negotiation skills to angle for the best possible deals from ISOs on splits, commissions, fees, expenses and benefits, observers say.

An upscale New York restaurant made headlines a while back by banning cash. Now the owners are trying to bring that policy to the masses.

Four consumer technology brands–Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google–are gathering momentum and have the ability to win in a world of integrated social media and payments, one analyst contends.

Every data-security and fraud-prevention vendor or payments-industry analyst offers similar advice to ISOs, agents, banks and merchants about protecting customer card data and personal information.

PayPal Inc. reportedly is planning to launch a mobile card reader that could help its nascent point-of-sale payment system reach small merchants.

Visa Inc. is asserting that the acquiring industry has had sufficient notice of the card brand’s new Fixed Acquirer Network Fee, which takes effect April 1.

Green Dot Corp. has agreed to buy location-based deals company Loopt Inc., the prepaid card marketer announced March 9.

The Electronic Transactions Association is pressing Visa Inc. to postpone the April 1 starting date for the new Fixed Acquirer Network Fee.