Payment processing

Big banks are starting to open the tech-spending spigot, but times are tight for their smaller peers.

Xerox Corp. said Monday it has completed its roughly $6.4 billion acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., an outsourcer that, among other things, processes credit card applications for issuers.

Processors, not independent sales organizations, likely will bear the brunt of a law that takes effect next January requiring acquirers to report merchant credit and debit card transactions to the Internal Revenue Service, says Henry Helgeson, co-CEO of Merchant Warehouse Inc., a Boston-based ISO.

Dozens of credit unions are walking away from the $60 million payment Visa issuers will get for the costs they incurred for the massive credit card breach at Heartland Payments System.

First Bank & Trust of Brookings, S.D., today announced it is issuing a decoupled, affinity debit card for In Defense of Animals, a nonprofit animal-rights group. Tempo Payments Inc. will process the card’s transactions on its payments platform.

In today’s economy, merchants still want to know how much credit and debit card processing is going to cost, but independent sales organizations say price is only one part of the sales pitch. Listening to what the merchant says it needs can be equally as important in securing the deal.

Citigroup Inc. is said to be switching its entire North American banking operations to a core processing application from Fidelity National Information Services Inc.

From the January/February 2010 issue of ISO&Agent.

From the January/February 2010 issue of ISO&Agent.

Hypercom Corp. will provide more than 12,000 PIN pads with EMV contactless card readers to European retailer Carrefour, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based point-of-sale terminal maker announced Thursday.

A growing number of financial companies are trying to foster creativity with in-house innovation labs.

More than 97% of Visa credit and debit card issuers have accepted last month’s offer from Visa Inc., Heartland Payments Systems Inc. and Heartland’s acquirers to settle claims related to the payment processor’s 2008 network data breach, according to the companies.

Citing the continued clamp down on consumer spending caused by the recession, MasterCard today reported healthier global purchase volume for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, while U.S. credit card volume fell.

Buoyed by improving economic trends around the world, Visa Inc. on Wednesday reported purchase-volume growth in all categories except U.S. credit for the quarter ended Dec. 31. Visa also for the first time reported its operational performance data and financial results simultaneously for the same quarter. It previously reported operational data a quarter later than its earnings.

North American Bancard’s decision to hire Deutsche Bank Securities is to “explore the opportunity to strategically align ourselves with financial partners to pursue any opportunities,” Marc Gardner, the independent sales organization’s president, tells PaymentsSource. North American Bancard earlier this week announced the Deutsche Bank hiring.

Six Pay S.A. plans to target merchant-processing opportunities in Eastern Europe as part of an effort to expand its operations, the Luxembourg-based payment-services company says.

Visa Inc.'s profits jumped by a third in its fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 31, and use of the company's debit and credit cards picked up in the U.S.

Western Union Co., the world's biggest money-transfer business, has reported that its fourth-quarter profit fell, and it forecast little or no revenue growth for 2010.

JetPay LLC, a Carrollton, Texas-based payment processor, says it has won a trademark-infringement issue involving its Web site address, www.jetpay.com.

Newtek Business Services Inc., a New York-based payments company, says it has refinanced a $15 million line of credit with Capital One N.A.