Payment processing

Visa is offering a new data encryption service that could compete with third-party security vendors' offerings. The service's launch also indicates the card brand's growing desire to push beyond the requirements of the Payment Card Industry data security standards.

Issuers exempt from the regulatory caps on debit card interchange are exploring the chance to grow their business-debit initiatives, stealing customers from larger rivals that now see such programs as unprofitable.

In a week's time, the mobile payments world was turned upside down as Square announced a major partnership with Starbucks and a radically different pricing option for merchants. Now payments providers are beginning to piece together how they can ride this wave instead of getting crushed underneath it.

Square is taking a bigger bite at the small-business market by offering flat-fee processing to small merchants, furthering the company's efforts to present itself as a more full-featured option for card acceptance.

ID Tech, a supplier of point-of-sale devices, has agreed to begin outfitting its SecureMag readers with TransArmor data encryption and tokenization from First Data.

It didn't take long for Jumio to release a new version of its Netswipe mobile software-development kit.

Norwegian banking group SpareBank 1 Gruppen will license Total System Services Inc.'s Prime 4 card-management system to support its issuance and issuer-processing activities under a deal the two companies announced.

Sionic Mobile, an Atlanta-based start-up that in June launched a mobile merchant-loyalty initiative in that city, is providing extra reward points to consumers to get them to use a Dwolla account for their spending.

Pundits often criticize prepaid card providers for having high monthly fees, but the real market pressure is on the fees charged for ATM access. As it turns out, prepaid card users very much want to keep using cash — but they don't want to pay to get it.

As more consumers try out Fiserv's person-to-person payment service, Popmoney, the tool is evolving to become as much a social tool as a payments one.

Merchant processor Global Payments expects to grow its direct presence in the health care market by agreeing to acquire Accelerated Payment Technologies.

With newcomers like Square gaining momentum in mobile payments, processors are more aggressively offering customers reasons to stick with them as merchants accept more payments outside their retail stores.

When crunching the numbers, it appears Square can't possibly make a profit in its new deal to process transactions for Starbucks.

First Data has reached an agreement to provide credit card processing and related services to First Niagara Bank in Buffalo, N.Y.

Total System Services is taking a different approach to sales by forming a joint venture with Central Payment Co.

VeriFone is supplying retailer Beall's with customer-facing point-of-sale devices that feature color displays and the capacity to adapt to changes in payments.

Sites like Groupon have captured consumers' attention and loyalty in a way that credit card issuers often dream of. A few savvy payments companies have found ways to benefit from the daily-deals fad.

As we transact, we give life to the inner "rock star" or "accountant" in us, says Brett King, chief executive of mobile finance start-up Movenbank.

Transaction processor Vantiv plans to offer its new Mobile Accept card reader to help brick-and-mortar merchants handle payments outside their stores — without paying more than they do for in-store payments.

Google has changed the rules about how issuers get into its mobile wallet, and American Express is the first to vocally and vehemently oppose Google's new setup. The outcome of this dispute could decide who controls transaction data in mobile payments.