Economy

Mindbody, a San Luis Opisbo, Calif.-based company that makes business-management software for health-and-fitness businesses, has become an independent sales organization to improve its profit margin and to secure more control over its relationships with merchants, says Rick Stollmeyer, Mindbody founder and CEO.

All U.S. merchant processors likely will benefit from anticipated reductions in debit card interchange rates once the Federal Reserve Board next year finishes its rate-setting task mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill President Obama signed into law in July. But they will need to be careful in how they share their savings, Paul Garcia, chairman and CEO of Global Payments Inc., told analysts July 27 while discussing the company’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings.

IPay POS Credit Card Terminal, the new version of the mobile-payment acceptance application called ProcessAway, now works with multiple gateways and comes with a card reader to accommodate card-present transactions, according to Randy Palermo, who developed the application that works on Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

SparkBase Adding Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare Integration

Merchant cash-advance company AmeriMerchant LLC’s merger with CanaFunding LLC this week is enabling ISOs to sell cash-advance services in either the U.S. or Canada, says David Goldin, AmeriMerchant president and CEO.

Portability rights, which entitle sales agents to take merchant accounts with them when leaving one ISO for another, are gaining greater importance in today’s still-sluggish economy.

Efforts to grow internationally appear to be paying off for Total System Services Inc., as are indications the economy is improving.

National Processing Co., a Louisville, Ky.-based merchant acquirer, announced July 26 plans to resell integrated point-of-sale payment software made by Datacap Systems Inc.

Stuart Harvey Jr., CEO of Atlanta-based Elavon Inc., is leaving the payment processor next month, Elavon says. Mike Passilla, Elavon executive vice president for global business development, will replace Harvey on Aug. 16 as president and CEO.

From the July/August 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the July/August 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the July/August 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the July/August 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

Merchant Warehouse Inc., a Boston-based ISO that offers software designed to help small retailers find the lowest-cost processing for card transactions, could benefit from Congress’ approval July 15 of the Dodd-Frank Act, says Henry Helgeson, the company’s co-CEO.

U.S. Bankcard Services Inc., an Industry, Calif.-based ISO, has added China UnionPay card acceptance to its list of merchant services.

Merchants unsure about which type of merchant account would be cheaper have another tool to use when deciding between a traditional merchant account, a Square Inc. mobile account and an online PayPal account.

Merchants do not need to retain a full 16-digit card number to resolve a transaction dispute, despite demands from some acquirers and processors, according to Visa Inc.

TransFirst In NBT Bank Deal

The allure of mobile payments, which Generator Research, a United Kingdom-based research firm, estimates will grow to an estimated $600 billion worldwide by 2014, has drawn AT&T Inc. into the fray, as have the merchants accepting payments via their phones. The telecommunication giant announced July 7 it will work with Apriva to sell the wireless-payments company’s AprivaPay and AprivaPay Professional mobile-payment services.