Economy

When the hassle of managing phone calls for an inside sales team becomes severe enough, ISOs and other businesses often seek the help of a third party.

The first round of testing ended Nov. 30 for the acquiring industry’s new Certified Payments Professional credential, and at least one candidate found the exam “appropriately difficult.”

Credit cardholders are satisfied with their most frequently used cards mainly because they never have had problems with them, according to new research from Auriemma Consulting Group.

Soon, even unbanked consumers can accept payment cards.

Transaction processor Vantiv on Nov. 29 introduced its first prepaid program, offering issuers general-purpose reloadable MasterCards.

European card issuers continue to report more ATM-related fraud losses associated with their cards’ use in the United States than in any other country, a new report reveals.

Attention to detail is becoming increasingly important for ISOs as a complex industry becomes even more demanding.

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.