ISOs

A small restaurant in Park City, Utah, figures to play a big role in determining how card networks prove suspected card data security breaches and whether card processors rightfully can deduct funds from merchant accounts–without telling the merchants–to cover their own network fines for breaches allegedly stemming from a client failing to comply with Payment Card Industry data-security standards.

Three months after the so-called Durbin amendment capped debit card interchange fees, Visa Inc. is showing a modest slowdown in its U.S. debit business but nothing on the order of the doomsday scenarios once predicted.

At first, Heartland Payment System Inc.’s insistence it would give its merchant clients 100% of the savings from new, reduced debit-interchange rates sounded like a public relations move. But some observers weren’t convinced the processor would stick with that policy if it didn’t equate to solid financial numbers.

Because 2012 represents a “feedback year” in the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council’s three-year cycle for establishing data-security standards, new council Chairman Mike Mitchell figures to absorb plenty of viewpoints about issues facing the industry along with the traditional complaints about compliance testing and costs.

MOUNT SNOW, VT.–An upbeat crowd filled the conference room and jammed the exhibit hall last week here at the Northeast Acquirers Association 2012 Winter Seminar and Outing, despite a relatively weak national economy, a decidedly bad local economy and weather a little too warm for skiing.

MOUNT SNOW, VT.–Social media, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, have limited but important uses in the acquiring business, according to Kevin Jones, president of SignaPay Ltd., an Irving, Texas-based ISO and processor.

WASHINGTON–A House bill aims to ease the tax-reporting requirements for retailers that rely on card purchases, which could stave off a wave of confused phone calls from merchants to their ISOs, agents and processors, according to the bill’s supporters.

A data-security provider is turning the time-tested “to-do list” into a technological tool merchants may use to protect credit card data and stay on track with Payment Card Industry data security standard compliance.

After a round of acquisitions, Cardtronics Inc. reported a surge in fourth-quarter revenue along with an uptick in expenses.

First Data Corp. expects to benefit this year when the last measure of the new debit-interchange legislation under the Durbin amendment takes hold on April 1, requiring financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets to have at least two processing networks on their debit cards.

MOUNT SNOW, VT.–Merchants don’t understand the Payment Card Industry data security standards, and ISOs aren’t doing enough to help them comply with those rules.

MasterCard Worldwide didn’t come right out and say it, but the card brand is encouraging U.S. issuers and merchants to embrace chip-and-PIN technology as part of a switch to EMV smart card security in the next three years.

Visa Inc. chairman and chief executive Joe Saunders on Jan. 31 downplayed concerns over the costs associated with its new digital wallet at the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

For some ISOs, the decision to offer mobile marketing services seems like a no-brainer.

ISOs and agents seem ready to withstand the changes rocking the payment industry.

Social media was created to build relationships. For some it has become the primary way they keep in touch with their social circles. Engagements and romantic breakups are announced via Facebook; pictures of new babies and new pets are shared over Twitter.

Scott Lang wants ISOs and agents using NACHA’s automated clearinghouse network to watch their language, particularly when discussing the service.

ISOs are preaching specialization as they brace for a shakeup caused by giant consumer-facing companies angling for positions in the payments industry.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, two bills that would have relied on payment companies to block funding to websites accused of content theft, were put on hold Jan. 20.

The new president of the Electronic Transactions Association does more than just talk about turning challenges into opportunities.