Payment processing

S1 Corp. has accepted a sweetened takeover offer from ACI Worldwide after spurning ACI’s earlier bid, the company announced Oct. 3.

The global treasury-management market, in which banks help corporate clients with cash management, trade finance and global payments, is huge and lacks good self-service tools and automated processing. And this is leaving a wide open opportunity among such large financial competitors as Visa Inc. and U.S. Bancorp’s Syncada payments network, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. to provide advanced treasury technology to corporate chief financial officers and treasury departments.

Fraud-prevention technology provider Kount Inc. is integrating with Zoovy Inc., a vendor of e-commerce software, to protect online merchants from fraud, the companies announced Sept. 30.

Considering a change in the way it will report future revenues, payment processor Planet Payment Inc. plans to delay release of its financial results for the first half of 2011, the company announced Sept. 29.

Considering a change in the way it will report future revenues, payment processor Planet Payment Inc. plans to delay release of its financial results for the first half of 2011, the company announced Sept. 29.

Euronet Worldwide Inc.’s epay division has signed an exclusive agreement to process prepaid mobile airtime transactions in the independent retail segment for Sprint Nextel Corp.’s Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA and Assurance Wireless no-contract wireless brands, the Leawood, Kan.-based company announced Sept. 29.

ACI Worldwide Inc. has extended its exchange offer for shares of S1 Corp. until Oct. 31.

CHICAGO—Last week, the PCI Security Standards Council pushed advanced encryption as a way to protect consumers’ card data. But one point-of-sale vendor executive contends authentication at every step of the payments process would work better to combat fraud.

Customer credit card data was not endangered during last week’s security breach of a small portion of websites hosted by GoDaddy.com Inc., a company executive says.

Responding to merchant complaints that their payment network would not allow them to switch to a less-expensive processor, gateway provider FeeFighters announced Sept. 21 plans to launch an online-payment service that simplifies the ability to make such changes.

Third-party payment services in China are gaining momentum over bank-led payment services among users thanks to e-commerce growth and changes in government regulations, suggests a research report released last week by research firm Analysys International.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–Merchants generally welcome the new industry guidance and requirements for security payment card data through advanced data encryption, but many questions surround specifics about prospective products and their implementation, say attendees at the PCI Security Standards Council's annual meeting that concludes here today.

Discover Financial Services more than doubled its third-quarter net income to $649 million as its customers increased their spending and its credit card loan portfolio grew for the first time in over two years.

Merchants and processors may find Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council requirements for the use of advanced encryption hardware to secure card data useful, but encryption alone is not security’s “silver bullet,” fraud-prevention vendors say.

The likelihood that S1 Corp. will merge with ACI Worldwide Inc. is increasing, despite S1’s stiff resistance (see story). And if such a deal does not occur, the rapidly consolidating commercial payments industry may force S1 to form another alliance soon, according to analysts who been closely watching the push-me-pull-you action unfold among S1, Fundtech Ltd. and ACI since June.

Protecting customer credit card data was not on the priority list for P.J. Jacokes when he started his own business three years ago.

Payments processor and technology provider Jack Henry & Associates Inc. has expanded the processing relationship between its iPay Technologies division and MasterCard Worldwide’s RPPS electronic bill-payment network, the companies announced Sept. 20.

Google Inc. has reached agreements with Visa Inc., American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services with the goal of eventually enabling other financial institutions to add their Near Field Communication-enabled payment card products to Google Wallet, the company announced Sept. 19.

A five-year terminal contract that will enable Avis Europe PLC Inc. to process and manage transactions from numerous European countries will help position French terminal maker Ingenico SA to corner the European car-rental market, company executives and an industry analyst say.