Payment processing

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.

VeriFone shares fell the most in more than two months after Starbucks, the largest coffee-shop chain, said it will use Square’s rival payment system in 7,000 stores.

Starbucks' $25 million investment in Square says a lot about the mobile payment provider's appeal to larger merchants — but the coffee chain's decision to leave out some of Square's technology also speaks volumes.

KeyBank will soon get to test the power of years of investments to its operations and redesigns to rewards as it moves its credit card operation back under its own roof.

Starbucks announced today that it is investing $25 million in Square and will begin using Square's mobile payment technology in its stores.

Bank of America Merchant Services is launching a Web portal to allow its merchant clients to offer daily deals through search engines, social media sites and other online forums.

U.S. Senator Richard Durbin said merchants should "think hard" before signing a $6.6 billion settlement with Visa, MasterCard and banks over credit-card fees.

GoPago's sales pitch is meant to make terminal manufacturers and independent sales organizations cringe: it is offering free hardware to support a cloud-based mobile payments system to small merchants, with no wiggle room on transaction fee pricing.

ViVOtech has sold its ViVOpay payment-hardware business, the company said Monday in a notice on its website.

Continuing its push to make it easier for consumers to make payments in their own country's currency while traveling, Planet Payment, Inc. has extended its Pay in Your Currency service to merchants in the United Arab Emirates.

No one affiliated with the Isis mobile payment initiative is saying exactly when the first testing in Salt Lake City and Austin, Texas will begin, but the venture is steadily tying its remaining loose ends.

When people can easily book appointments with small merchants, they don't always show up — and this practice has sparked demand for a system that also accepts deposits, so that merchants can be compensated for no-shows. That same technology can make it easier for companies to accept payments through Facebook pages.

Bloggers and tech reporters have been quick to give Visa a swift kick in the pants for the failure of a point-of-sale system at London's Wembley Stadium during Olympic soccer matches this week. But Visa says, and Wembley Stadium has acknowledged, that the breakdown at the stadium occurred on a system that Wembley owns and operates.

First Data, which processes about half of all U.S. card spending, recently identified that debit spending again overtook that of credit cards. Now another trend is emerging: PIN-debit use is growing much faster than signature debit and credit.

Higher One, the college-payment processor founded by three Yale students, is seeking a buyer and has contacted private-equity firms, said three people with knowledge of the discussions.