ISOs

Discover Financial Services is banking on a mobile future. Executives at the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company said during a Dec. 16 conference call with analysts to discuss its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that its deal with wireless carriers AT&T Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. will play heavily in its future.

Merchant cash-advance company AmeriMerchant LLC says the hundreds of merchant-services sales offices working with transaction processor First Data Corp. will have an easier time selling AmeriMerchant’s services through an agreement announced Dec. 14.

Payment Processing Technologies LLC has launched ISO Registration In A Box. The Warsaw, Ind.-based ISO, also known as PayProTec, says it designed the service to make it easier for independent sales offices to grow their businesses.

The allure of double-digit payment card transaction volume growth and recent deregulation have prompted Elavon Inc. and Credicard, a subsidiary of Citigroup Inc., to form a merchant acquiring joint venture in Brazil, Elavon announced last week.

Assurance Investment Partners Inc. has added merchant-processing services to the list of offerings to its clients with its investment in Veritas Merchant Services LLC, a Louisville, Ky.-based ISO, Assurance announced last week.

Vivotech, Monitise To Deliver NFC Mobile Payments In The U.S.

About one in five consumers would stop frequenting merchant locations that refuse to accept their credit cards for small payments, new survey data from Market Strategies International suggest.

VeriFone Systems Inc. is planning major investments in payment terminals with contactless readers built in as wireless carriers, card networks and banks proceed with mobile-payments initiatives.

Consumer spending online during the five-day period that started with Black Friday following Thanksgiving grew by double digits compared with the same period in 2009, merchant processor Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC announced Dec. 1.

More than 450 C&A Mode KG fashion-retail stores in Germany plan to deploy 2,700 Hypercom Corp. Artema Hybrid point-of-sale terminals, Hypercom announced Dec. 6.

Electronic Payment Systems LLC, a Denver-based ISO, owns a toll-free number used by approximately 515,000 merchants processing with TSYS Acquiring Solutions, a federal judge ruled last month.

After piloting an online payment network that it says guards against potential identity theft, JetPay LLC will be providing that same platform, Secure Vault Payments, to its own clients.

PayPal Inc.’s impending move into face-to-face transactions enabled by VeriFone Systems Inc. mobile point-of-sale terminals has the eBay unit developing a reseller program, Laura Chambers, PayPal senior director of mobile, tells ISO&Agent Weekly.

Through its acquisitions, VeriFone Systems Inc. soon could become the largest terminal maker in the world. On Nov. 17, the San Jose, Calif.-based company announced an all-stock purchase of its rival Hypercom Corp. valued at $485 million, including net debt VeriFone would assume. This is a step up from the $280 million hostile bid VeriFone made public in September.

Sales agents, and some ISOs, that consider their no-risk status as an exemption from being on the hook for merchant charge-backs, fines, fees, rejected automated clearinghouse transactions and other merchant losses may be surprised to find that many agent agreement often find ways to hold some agents liable for some merchant losses.

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.