Payment processing

The merchant-acquiring deal Discover Financial Services struck this week with Global Payments Inc. to expand acceptance for its Discover and Diners Club cards in Europe and Asia caps a string of similar deals the company has inked over the past year. But it likely will not be Discover’s last such international acquiring deal, Gerard Wagner, Discover vice president of global acceptance, tells PaymentsSource.

Co-op Financial Services on March 15 signed a nonbinding letter of intent to purchase the Share System debit and ATM processing network from Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union. Terms were not disclosed.

More than 300 T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants plan to use a payment card security method that masks sensitive transaction data with a numerical token, says Merchant Link, the company providing the TransactionVault service.

International expansion will not benefit every company, and merchant-service providers that want to expand outside the United States should carefully evaluate their business models to determine whether such a strategy is feasible, some observers note.

Will Detterman, the chief executive of Leap Payments Inc., admits he's taking a big chance in adopting a payment card acceptance pricing model that bucks the traditional formula.

First Data Corp. yesterday reported flat growth in fourth-quarter card-processing revenue. The Atlanta-based processor says it generated revenue of $819.5 million in retail and alliances services for the quarter, down slightly from $819.8 million during the same period a year earlier. Retail and alliance services includes First Data’s merchant processing business. Full-year revenue for the segment totaled $3.1 billion, down 6.1% from $3.3 billion in 2008.

First Data Corp. executives say the company has no plans for an initial public offering — but its choice of a chief executive seems to say otherwise.

Michael Capellas, chairman and CEO of First Data Corp., is leaving the Atlanta-based payment processor to work as a senior advisor at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., the investment group that bought the transaction processor in 2007.

Tio Networks, which today announced the planned launch of a mobile bill-payment platform, estimates it will generate 20% of its revenue from the service by 2011, according to the Burnaby, British Columbia-based expedited bill-payment processor.

Heartland Payments Systems Inc. has signed Martin Eagle Oil Co. Inc. as the first customer for the processor’s SmartLink consolidated-network technology, Princeton, N.J.-based Heartland announced this week.

Nxgen International is opening operations in the United Kingdom and Italy as part of a European expansion strategy the Whitefish, Mont.-based merchant-service provider announced last week. Diversifying geographically can help Nxgen grow and differentiate itself further, says Giuseppe Caltabiano, Nxgen president.

As one of the first resellers of VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s PayWare Mobile service, Merchant 360 Inc. says some mobile merchants like that the service includes a card reader that enables them to get card-present transaction rates.

One of the world’s largest trials of Near Field Communication payments, which Citigroup Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide launched last year in India, provided a glimpse into the challenges of incorporating merchant-sponsored product discounts and coupons within mobile payments.

WorldNet, an Ireland-based online payment gateway, says its virtual payment-terminal application released this week for Apple Inc.’s iPhone is the company’s first, and it plans to add chip-and-PIN capability to the software in later versions.

Heartland Payments Systems Inc. has signed Martin Eagle Oil Co. Inc. as the first customer for the processor’s SmartLink consolidated-network technology, Princeton, N.J.-based Heartland announced today.

Ingenico SA has introduced a suite of mobile-commerce applications designed to work with most mobile devices merchants already own, thereby simplifying the sales process for independent sales organizations hoping to convince more merchants to accept payment cards, contends the France-based point-of-sale terminal maker.

As one of the first resellers of VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s PayWare Mobile service, Merchant 360 Inc. says some mobile merchants like that the service includes a card reader that enables them to get card-present transaction rates.

BOSTON – Fiserv filed suit in federal court here last week claiming a senior executive laid off from its CheckFree unit took a confidential customer list with him and is now using it to solicit customers on behalf of a competitor, Charles River Systems.

Lingering effects of a weakened U.S. economy continue to inhibit U.S. small businesses from making significant payment-systems upgrades, according to VeriFone Holdings Inc.

BOSTON – The state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling dismissing a suit by CUMIS Insurance Society and 130 credit unions claiming they were owed recompense in the 2004 credit card breach at BJ Wholesale Club.