Payment processing

ACH Federal LLC, an automated clearinghouse transaction processor, will refer merchants wanting credit and debit card transaction-processing services to PDX Enterprise Solutions, a Portland, Ore.-based independent sales organization, ACH Federal announced July 28.

Mindbody, a San Luis Opisbo, Calif.-based company that makes business-management software for health-and-fitness businesses, has become an independent sales organization to improve its profit margin and to secure more control over its relationships with merchants, says Rick Stollmeyer, Mindbody founder and CEO.

AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile USA are attempting to create a system to bypass credit and debit cards and allow consumers to pay for purchases by smartphones, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing unnamed sources.

MoneyGram International Inc. swung to a second-quarter profit on an 11% drop in operating expenses as revenue came in short of analysts' expectations, reports Dow Jones.

Significant improvement in two key business metrics–fleet-fueling volume and number of vehicles serviced–combined with stronger cobrand MasterCard purchase volume helped boost second-quarter revenue at Wright Express Corp.

Wright Express Corp. on July 30 announced a $318 million deal to acquire the Australian prepaid and fleet card operations of London-based Retail Decisions Ltd. as part of Wright’s strategy to diversify its fuel card operations.

Economic pressures that caused volume to decline in Europe and decreases in mobile-operator rates in some markets contributed to a relatively poor second quarter financially for Euronet Worldwide Inc.

PBS A/S, a Denmark-based electronic-payments provider, will process all transactions initiated with cards issued in Germany by Luxembourg-based Ikano Bank SE under an expanded contract agreement PBS announced on July 27.

ProPay is introducing a secure virtual terminal that can help small merchants improve their data security.

IPay POS Credit Card Terminal, the new version of the mobile-payment acceptance application called ProcessAway, now works with multiple gateways and comes with a card reader to accommodate card-present transactions, according to Randy Palermo, who developed the application that works on Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

Citic Bank International Ltd., a member of the China Citic Bank Group, has begun using the Clearing House Interbank Payments System to support the bank’s wire-transfer payments, the Clearing House announced July 28.

All U.S. merchant processors likely will benefit from anticipated reductions in debit card interchange rates once the Federal Reserve Board next year finishes its rate-setting task mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill President Obama signed into law last week. But they will need to be careful in how they share their savings, Paul Garcia, chairman and CEO of Global Payments Inc., told analysts July 27 while discussing the company’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings.

Visa Inc. on July 28 reported net income of $716 million for the fiscal third quarter ended June 30, down 1.8% from $729 million during the same period a year earlier. Net operating revenue was $2 billion, up 21.2% from $1.65 billion, driven by growth in data processing and international transaction revenue, the company said.

Fiserv yesterday reported a 9% decline in second quarter earnings, based on a drop in income from discontinued operations after last year’s sale of its insurance business.

Stuart Harvey Jr., CEO of Atlanta-based Elavon Inc., is leaving the payment processor, next month, Elavon says. Mike Passilla, currently Elavon’s executive vice president for global business development, will replace Harvey on Aug. 16 as president and CEO.

Nxgen Payment Services’ MerchReport.com service that enables merchants to pinpoint transactions that could have been processed at less-expensive rates is diversifying the independent sales organization’s portfolio, says Michael Jaffe, Nxgen vice president of global marketing and new programs.

Co-op Financial Services July 26 announced three new credit union partners with institutions in Oregon and Washington.

National Processing Co., a Louisville, Ky.-based merchant acquirer, announced July 26 plans to resell integrated point-of-sale payment software made by Datacap Systems Inc.

Hypercom Corp. last week announced a deal in Sweden in which a taxi company in Stockholm is deploying 1,600 of its Optimum M4100 “Blade” payment terminals.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC is in talks to sell its credit card payment processing unit, valued at as much as $3.8 billion, to Advent International Corp. and Bain Capital LLC, two people with knowledge of the matter said Friday according to a Bloomberg report.