Payment processing

Total System Services Inc. on July 20 announced the signing of a contract to support Tesco Bank’s portfolio of 2.4 million credit cards. Tesco, a supermarket bank with more than 6 million customer accounts, is the United Kingdom’s sixth-largest credit card provider.

A payments security startup is trying to minimize compliance headaches for small online retailers through cloning — of webpages, that is.

Aptys Solutions LLC last week introduced Active Archive, a platform that enables financial institutions to manage all saved payments data in a single location. Active Archive supports automated clearinghouse transactions, mobile payments, wire funds transfers and check-image exchanges.

Sage Payment Solutions, a merchant-services company with more than 155,000 merchants, has renewed its processing deal with TSYS Acquiring Solutions, a unit of Total System Services Inc., a Columbus, Ga.-based payment processor, TSYS announced July 19.

MasterCard Inc. said its issuers have agreed to the terms of a settlement agreement it reached with Heartland Payment Systems over the processor's 2008 data breach.

MasterCard Worldwide said July 15 that it received enough support from card issuers to proceed with a $41.4 million settlement in the Heartland Payments Systems breach, but dozens of credit unions and banks are still holding out as part of a class action lawsuit filed against Heartland.

Visa Europe has launched a global information-management platform for its commercial cards called Visa IntelliLink Spend Management, the company announced July 15.

U.S. Bankcard Services Inc., an Industry, Calif.-based independent sales organization, has added China UnionPay card acceptance to its list of merchant services.

The prepaid card market has come a long way over the past two decades, and T. Jack Williams has been there since virtually the beginning. As director of membership services at Blockbuster Entertainment, Williams played a key role in creating the world’s first merchant gift card program in the spring of 1994. He later went on to help launch the Kmart Cash Card in 1997 while at Stored Value Systems, at the time a division of National City Bank (see bio). This was the first merchant gift card that also included AT&T long-distance minutes.

Merchants do not need to retain a full 16-digit card number to resolve a transaction dispute, despite demands from some acquirers and processors, according to Visa Inc.

Businesses of all sizes are increasing their use electronic forms of payment to help improve their cash flow, the results of a recent Aberdeen Group study show.

Merchants may pay recurring bills using a portion of their payment card settlement funds through PayFast, a service Integrity Payment Systems LLC launched earlier this month.

Independent sales organizations looking to compete against free-terminal programs and to boost their profit margins may turn to Asia-made point-of-sale terminals.

Consumers remained cautious in June, using their payments cards to spend just 6.8% more than they did during the same month last year. The growth in their spending activity also was down from the 9.2% rise in May compared with the same month in 2009, according to First Data’s SpendTrend report.

Social-networking website Facebook quickly is becoming the next playground for payment companies.

Discover Financial Services continues to expand its presence internationally. In its latest move, the card company announced July 8 an alliance with Serbian payment network DinaCard.

Nxgen Payment Services, a Whitefish, Mont.-based merchant-service provider for Elavon Global Payment Services, and wholesale roofing distributor ABC Supply Co. Inc., on July 7 announced an expanded merchant-processing relationship in conjunction with ABC Supply’s recent acquisition of Bradco Supply Corp.

An unnamed quick-serve restaurant chain is testing Apple Inc.’s iPad portable computer as a customer-facing ordering and payment device, according to OrderTalk Inc., which makes online ordering systems for restaurants.

U.S. Bankcard Services Inc., an Industry, Calif.-based independent sales organization, has added China UnionPay card acceptance to its list of merchant services.

Trifish Finance Inc. in May selected ACH Federal to provide automated clearinghouse payment processing to its customers after learning its previous provider, MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc., stopped processing ACH payments, ACH Federal announced last week.