Economy

Discover Financial Services is still struggling to reach “the last mile” of full U.S. merchant acceptance as many retail locations fall short in promoting the brand at the point of sale, Roger Hochschild, Discover president and chief operating officer, told analysts on Nov. 16.

ISOs can differentiate themselves–or at least keep up with the competition–by offering merchants value-added business-to-business services that track payroll, inventory and marketing. B2B services sometimes earn ISOs a profit, but often they serve as loss leaders.

Imagine a small-business owner toiling over a stack of checks in a tiny back office. Pen in hand, the overworked entrepreneur laboriously scratches the information from each check onto a deposit slip. Eventually, the paperwork finished, he puts the lock on the door, trudges to the bank and stands in line to make his deposit.

Declines in same-store sales at small and midsize businesses appear to be easing up, suggests the Small Business Credit Sales Report.

Ingenico SA is supplying point-of-sale hardware and transaction-processing and terminal-management services to McDonald’s Australia Ltd., the France-based terminal maker announced Nov. 2. Terms were not disclosed.

Hypercom Corp. made its case Nov. 2 that it can succeed as an independent company.

The Federal Reserve Board’s still-unwritten debit-interchange rules and new restrictions on network-exclusivity agreements could help First Data Corp.’s business, executives at the transaction processor predicted Nov. 4.

Effective Jan. 1, merchants and payments companies must ensure their systems comply with versions 2.0 of the Payment Card Industry and Payment Application data-security standards the PCI Security Standards Council released Oct. 28.

In today’s marketplace, where members of the merchant-acquiring community are using every resource available to improve their professional standing and to find new business, many are turning to such social-networking websites as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to get in front of their respective audiences.

Internet PIN-debit payment technology is slowly, but steadily, gaining traction in the marketplace as several companies have introduced products intended to bring more security to online transactions.

Visa Inc. is making inroads into the world of third-party software development, bolstering its ability to compete in e-commerce payments.

VeriFone Systems Inc.’s move to buy the point-of-sale terminal business of the France-based card maker Gemalto NV could be especially helpful in the event that its attempt to buy rival Hypercom Corp. fails.

Overnight, young mobile-payment company Bling Nation Ltd. became visible to 4 million smartphone users.

Companies continue to release mobile point-of-sale acceptance services amid few, if any, signs of the trend abating.

ISOs and acquirers will have work to do because of the Federal Reserve Board’s impending regulations that will set policy for establishing “reasonable and proportional” debit card interchange rates, panelists at the Western States Acquirers Association conference in San Diego told attendees last week.

Point-of-sale terminals five years from now may not look much different from today’s devices, but big changes are anticipated for the software running on them, new research suggests.

Guest column