Economy

Hypercom Corp. plans to use its new point-of-sale products for use with Apple Inc.’s iPhone not only to reach mobile merchants but also to target brick-and-mortar retailers that want to expedite client purchases and avoid long lines at sales registers, Stuart Taylor, Hypercom vice president of global solutions and marketing, told ISO&Agent Weekly last week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.

Discover Financial Services has expanded acceptance of its cards at merchant locations in the United States to its satisfaction after opening its network to third-party acquirers in 2007. The company’s goal now is to raise merchants’ awareness that they can accept Discover cards and to expand operations globally, says Gerry Wagner, Discover vice president of global acceptance.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council will update all three of its standards this year, and it eventually may place all on a three-year update cycle, says Bob Russo, the council’s general manager.

Why are best practices so important to ISOs? For many, they are an effective means to ensure uniformity and help increase visibility into company operations to ease merchant concerns.

Acculynk Inc., which enables merchants to accept PIN-debit purchases online, is broadening its offerings to include online card processing and is making its products available for resale through ISOs, the company announced last week.

VeriFone Holdings Inc. last week named Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC as one of its preferred merchant processors for users of its mobile phone card reader.

Despite feeling the effects of a down economy, ISOs continue to propel much of Global Payments Inc.’s revenue growth, executives from the payment processor said last week during the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings conference call with analysts.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

Editor's Note from the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

From the April 2010 issue of ISO&Agent magazine.

A majority of ISO and merchant-acquiring salespeople say the nation’s latest recession had an impact on their compensation, the results of the ISO&Agent 2010 Compensation Survey show.

Speakers at a recent Internal Revenue Service hearing on proposed transaction-reporting requirements that take effect next January largely focused on the potentially detrimental effects their companies may experience from a foreign-merchant rule contained within the law.

An Internal Revenue Service initiative announced earlier this month could spur independent sales organizations and merchant acquirers to assess how they classify their staffs, Holli Hart Targan, president of the Electronic Transactions Association, noted at the Southeast Acquirers Association conference this week in Atlanta.

FrontStream Payments Inc. will double its annual transaction-processing volume to $2 billion following last week’s acquisition of Fast Transact Inc., a Lacey, Wash.-based ISO, FrontStream CEO Emmet Seibels tells ISO&Agent Weekly.

Residuals are a standard form of payments revenue for ISOs and sales agents, but the weak economy, decreased transaction volumes and margin compression are making it more difficult for individuals to subsist on residual income alone. As some agents’ residuals grow tenuous, more salespeople are expressing interest in up-front revenue to bolster their incomes.

Compliance among small merchants with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard remains relatively low, but ISOs may be able to increase compliance rates in their portfolios by launching multifaceted campaigns, some industry insiders suggest.

FrontStream Payments Inc. will double its annual transaction-processing volume to $2 billion following last week’s acquisition of Fast Transact Inc., a Lacey, Wash.-based independent sales organization, FrontStream CEO Emmet Seibels tells PaymentsSource.