Payment processing

Consumers are increasingly using payment cards at vending machines, and the owners of the devices are reaping the benefits through higher ticket sales and increased transaction volume.

Square has shut out independent sales organizations as distributors of its mobile card reader. Now one ISO has gone on the offensive by offering its own.

Facebook is moving away from its Credits virtual currency to a more robust payment system that supports real money. At the same time, new survey data show that consumers are interested in bringing their banking business to the social network.

Discover Financial Services may be having more success than its peers in getting consumers to revolve balances from month to month — which is where more profits lie.

Turning a phone into a credit card reader is no longer anything special. Square, facing increasing competition from bigger rivals, is adding features to its small plastic card reader to make it a more fleshed-out product for merchants.

Alliance Data Systems Corp. has agreed to buy the $475 million private-label credit card portfolio of Bon-Ton Stores Inc., a 275-store chain with outlets in 23 states.

A Denver-based start-up that began by offering Facebook credits as rewards is adding a proprietary prepaid card to create another redemption option and to help expand the program's marketing potential.

Heartland Payment Systems announced two promotions and a new high-level hire on June 18.

The personal information of certain merchants may have been exposed in addition to the consumer data breach Global Payments reported in March, the processor said June 12.

Signature Systems says its Swift Exchange platform can address a pain point for rewards wallets: rewards are easier for consumers to earn than to spend.

Apple has over 300 retail stores, but it relies heavily on mobile devices — not just cash registers — to handle payments in its aisles. Intuit's latest update to QuickBooks Point of Sale allows its small-merchant clients to duplicate Apple's model.

Cartera Commerce has received $12.2 million in funding from a group of investors led by Comvest Group, the loyalty-shopping platform provider announced June 5.

A data breach against a well-known payments processor assuredly triggers concern about what processors are or aren’t doing to protect stored data.

Merchants have never before had so many options for accepting cards, but a stubborn core that deals only in cash may never change its ways.

Two years ago, Bryan Johnson, who is CEO of an online payments and data security software startup called Braintree, got a poor reception when he asked established payment providers to cooperate with each other in allowing card data transfers.Today, Braintree has completed a credit card data transfer from nearly every major provider in the industry.

The payment processor Planet Payment said May 23 that it purchased Branded Payment Solutions, an Irish payments company.

Vantiv is offering Ingenico's new point of sale products in an effort to prepare the industry for the EMV chip-card standard and Near Field Communication technology.

Tokenization, a security technique that eliminates card data from merchant systems, provides a clear benefit to merchants but can be difficult to manage without the support of a processor.

Total System Services Inc. wants to put itself in a position to take advantage of growth in mobile payments and banking.

ORLANDO–If the annual Card Forum and Expo staged here last week were a car on a family trip, attendees played the roles of restless kids in the backseat asking, “Are we there yet?”