Payment processing

VeriFone Systems Inc. on May 26 reported net income of $20.2 million for the fiscal second quarter ended April 30, an 89% increase from $10.7 million the point-of-sale terminal maker generated during the same period last year.

Though legislation that would permit merchants to set minimum and maximum limits on card transactions remains pending in Congress, it is gaining a lot of attention among merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations.

First Data Corp.’s new chief Joe Forehand is wasting no time in shaking things up within the debt-laden processing company, as indicated by the company’s May 25 announcement of the unexpected departure of three top executives, including its recently hired chief financial officer, W. Patrick Shannon.

MasterCard Worldwide is planning to open up its software format, enabling third-party programmers to develop payments applications for its network. The company on May 25 said it would release open application programming interfaces for developers later this year.

With restaurants accounting for nearly 35% of Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s merchant base, the payment processor thought it appropriate to introduce its advanced payment-encryption technology this week at the National Restaurant Association’s show in Chicago.

Best Buy Co. Inc.’s first store in Turkey will use a shared point-of-sale service, eliminating the multiple POS terminals commonly seen domestically on merchant countertops, according to Ingenico S.A., which is supplying the service.

Software platforms that have enabled developers to create payment applications for use on Apple's iPhone and social-networking websites will have a significant effect on the payments industry over the next decade, David Evans, founder of Market Platform Dynamics, said.

State Bank of India is increasing its domestic merchant acquiring activity with plans to deploy up to 1.5 million point-of-sale terminals for credit and debit card acceptance by March 2011, an official from the Mumbai-based bank tells PaymentsSource.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has entered a $41.1 million agreement with MasterCard Inc. to settle claims stemming from the 2008 security breach of the Princeton, N.J., company's processing systems.

Financial institutions generally view fraud and regulatory pressure as their key challenges this year, according to the Pulse electronic funds transfer network’s 2010 Debit Issuer study released this week.

Despite negative economic winds and the effect of tough new regulations, credit card companies should realize there are ways to adapt and stay positive in the current environment, Peter Vaughn, senior vice president of global brand management for American Express Co. told audience members during Tuesday’s keynote speech at SourceMedia Inc.'s Card Forum and Expo in Orlando.

MasterCard Worldwide’s new tiered-interchange rates will cut Cardtronics Inc.’s ATM operating gross profit by nearly $2 million during the remainder of the year for transactions routed over MasterCard’s Cirrus network, Cardtronics said in a May 7 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

IPayment Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based payment processor, is reselling Roam Data Inc.’s RoamPay mobile-payment services, Roam Data says. RoamPay can be loaded onto cell phones and used to accept credit and debit card payments.

Interchange fees are the largest component of merchant card-acceptance fees, and the merchant lobby has been waging an aggressive political campaign to get government to curb them.

The private-equity firm Permira has reportedly teamed up with American Express Co. to bid for Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC's Global Merchant Services division, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.

Global Payments Inc. is expanding into the Philippines with its HomeCurrencyPay product. The addition is the latest in Global Payments’ expanding Asian services.

In two weeks of Senate debate over regulatory reform, a provision that has nothing to do with the financial crisis may have stirred the most emotion.

Fidelity National Information Services, which acquired Metavante Technologies last year, said it is closing a Metavante office in Madison, Wis., and terminating 157 employees who work there.

An amendment that would give the Federal Reserve Board authority to control debit card interchange rates could have a “neutral to slightly positive” impact on First Data Corp., an executive at the Atlanta-based payment processor told analysts during a May 14 conference call to discuss first quarter earnings.