Payment processing

James B. Lipham is retiring as senior executive vice president and chief financial officer at Total System Services Inc.

Security can be difficult to improve at gas stations because payment hardware is built into the pumps, making it costly and difficult to upgrade. First Data and VeriFone are teaming up to overcome this challenge.

Bringing a point of sale terminal to market isn't as easy as it used to be. Since the introduction of contactless and mobile payment tech, the number of tests a manufacturer must pass for certification is "unbelievable," executives at U.K.-based Spire Payments say.

For a technology still in the midst of evolving, mobile payments attract an overwhelming amount of interest. Competition between payment systems is intense — as the Wall Street Journal recently noted, AngelList’s mobile payments startup roster includes more than 640 players.

New York state is cracking down on online lenders that, it says, are using debit card transactions to skirt payday lending laws.

First Data reported a better financial picture in the first quarter, a period that also saw the company make inroads into small business technology and accelerate its support of EMV-chip card technology.

Target Corp.'s choice to work with MasterCard Inc. for chip-and-PIN credit and debit cards next year makes a strong statement about payment security.

Viableware has added the ability for full-service restaurants to accept EMV-chip cards with its handheld card reader, Rail.

The debit networks and card brands have largely resolved two years of debate over routing EMV debit cards, but an ongoing court battle over debit fees and routing makes the full scope of their responsibilities unclear.

The U.S. is roughly two years into its migration to chip payments, but in the last few months I have seen the tide turn and this migration start to really pick up speed. But before I talk about where we are now, it’s important to understand where we have been and how we have arrived here.

Biometric authentication company NXT-ID will soon roll out a wallet that is designed to digitally store payment cards without a mobile phone.

As independent sales organizations (ISOs) offer new payment technology and other services to improve merchant relationships, the ISOs have to decide whether to charge a fee—a difficult decision that can differ from one merchant to another.

Starbucks may soon make the tools behind its successful m-commerce strategy available to other retailers.

To improve the chances that consumers will value a particular issuer's card out of the many in their wallets, that issuer must use all of the data at its disposal to make the card experience personal, bankers say.

Facebook knows that if it misuses consumer data, it will scare its users off. But the social network also knows that by keeping consumers aware of what it is doing and giving them a chance to opt out, it can fundamentally change the way advertisers such as card issuers do business.

According to the Millennial Disruption Index, millennials believe payments innovation will come from outside their bank, with nearly half showing more confidence in what startups and technology companies add to payments than what their banks do. This presents a challenge and an opportunity for financial institutions moving forward.

PayPal and the mobile technology provider QikServe are working to enable U.K. hospitality businesses to accept orders and payments through the PayPal smartphone app.

Mobile imaging is vital to Green Dot's GoBank account, which relies on the mobile device for nearly all customer interaction.

Global payments processor 2Checkout has closed on the final tranche of a $60 million investment that it will use to fuel its move into international markets.

Most financial institutions and issuers of debit and credit cards, as well as merchant branded private label payment schemes, miss three key areas of due diligence in their return on investment (ROI) analysis of card-linked offers (CLO) programs: Incremental merchant results (Performance), Consumer offer targeting (Relevancy) and Merchant offers (Content).