Economy

The merchant-acquiring industry is turning an Internal Revenue Service reporting requirement into a profit center, some analysts suggest.

A new blog can help ISOs and agents gain credibility with restaurant operators, the site’s owner says.

A Toronto-based payments gateway is providing consumers with a simpler way to make online purchases from mobile phones, and it is looking for ISOs to promote the product to merchants.

Transaction processor TransFirst has purchased RST Ventures Inc., an electronic payment processing services provider that does business as US Merchant Services, TransFirst announced Oct. 5.

SAN FRANCISCO–Entrepreneurs often start ISOs with the goal of someday selling their merchant portfolio for a large sum and retiring to live the good life.

Hypercom USA has changed its name to Equinox Payments LLC in a move that one analyst says should take no one by surprise.

Carla Balakgie has stepped down as CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association to take the same title at the National Automatic Merchandising Association.

Now that new Federal Reserve Board rules essentially have cut in half the interchange portion of the merchant acquirer expense for many debit card transactions, Global Payments Inc. plans to share “a significant amount of this” with its merchant clients, the company’s top executive told analyst during an Oct. 4 conference call to discuss fiscal first quarter earnings.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., took to the Senate floor yesterday in an impromptu attack on the $5 monthly fee Bank of America Corp. announced last week, demanding that BofA CEO BrianMoynihan justify the new fee, which kicks in next year.

Apriva LLC has released the Apriva Secure Communication Suite, which its ISS division designed to help secure mobile communications, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company announced Oct. 3.

Fees this year will surpass interest as the payment card industry’s largest income component for the first time, representing 52.7% of total revenue, according to R.K. Hammer, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based consultancy.

A startup tokenization-services vendor is seeking independent sales organizations to sell its security measure to merchants.

International Bancard Corp. is looking for ISOs and agents throughout the country to call on and close deals for card-acceptance services with “warm” prospects referred by its new nationwide referral network.

Euronet Worldwide Inc. and financial services software partner Wipit Inc. are hoping to convert cash-paying consumers into “wipit” accountholders with a free mobile-payment application they plan to launch in the fourth quarter.

Fraud-prevention technology provider Kount Inc. is integrating with Zoovy Inc., a vendor of e-commerce software, to protect online merchants from fraud, the companies announced Sept. 30.

Bank of America Corp., the nation’s largest issuer of debit cards, plans to start charging its checking customers $5 per month, or $60 annually, if they use their debit cards to make purchases.

Banks and technology companies betting on mobile payments have to overcome a basic hurdle: most Americans still do not have smartphones.

The vast majority of companies continue to fall short of complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard during their initial audit, with 79% failing and 21% getting a passing grade, contends a report Verizon Communications Inc. released Sept. 28.