POS and Retail

Visa Inc. says it plans to implement a dual interchange schedule for issuing banks and credit unions in the wake of debit interchange regulation.

Total System Services Inc., or TSYS, has moved quicker than it originally anticipated in acquiring First National Bank of Omaha’s stake in First National Merchant Solutions LLC.

United Bank Card Inc. is making its Harbortouch point-of-sale system available for free to merchants that continue to use the company to process their payment card transactions, the Hampton, N.J.-based ISO announced Jan. 3.

VeriFone Systems Inc. confirmed its plans to spin off Hypercom Corp.’s U.S business after its planned merger is completed in the second half of this year, according to regulatory filing Wednesday.

Compliance with Payment Card Industry data-security standards is a top concern among smaller merchants, but many remain unaware of the scope of their potential liability regarding data breaches and are unclear on specific requirements, new survey data released Jan. 12 suggest.

North American Bancard will use Partner Commerce Inc.’s advertising network to find prospective merchants to help drive account growth, the Troy, Mich.-based independent sales organization announced Jan. 6.

More than half of corporations plan to increase spending this year on payment-security compliance, while the task of educating employees on the proper methods for handling cardholder data remains a pesky challenge, new survey data released Jan. 12 suggest.

Payment-services company Merchant Link LLC and point-of-sale terminal maker Pax Technology Ltd. have signed agreements to use Voltage Security Inc.’s advanced SecureData encryption service, the security technology company announced in separate news releases Jan. 11.

An online version of US Dataworks Inc.’s Clearingworks payment service is now available to businesses looking to automate many of the nonelectronic payments they receive, the Houston-based company announced Jan. 11.

A limited numbers of Bangkok commuters this spring will begin testing the use of a single, contactless smart card to access the city’s two train networks, an official at the Bangkok Mass Transit System Co. Ltd. tells PaymentsSource.

Bigger merchants are breaking free of the confines of the cash register with mobile technology originally designed for mom-and-pop stores.

Ingenico S.A. and Merchant Link, a Silver Spring, Md.-based provider of payment gateway and data-security services, announced Jan. 10 an agreement to jointly offer On Guard with Merchant Link’s TransactionVault tokenization technology.

American Express Co. has appointed Toby Eduardo Redshaw executive vice president and chief information officer, replacing Stephen Squeri, who was promoted. Redshaw previously was global chief information officer for Aviva PLC.

Visa Inc. says it plans to implement a dual interchange schedule for issuing banks and credit unions in the wake of debit interchange regulation.

Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. on Jan. 6 reported net income of $53.5 million for its fiscal second quarter ended Nov. 30, down 14.8% from $62.8 million during the same period last year. Revenues, however, increased by 8.4%, to $443.5 million from $409 million.

Visa Inc. says it has made upgrades to its Advanced Authorization antifraud system.

Ingenico S.A.’s new iSC220 and iSC250 point-of-sale terminals will accept magnetic stripe and both contact and contactless chip card payments, the terminal maker announced Jan. 4. The terminals, which also can capture signatures, go on sale later this quarter.

Online payment provider SafetyPay Inc. has inked a deal with the Brazil-based bank Banrisul to enable the bank’s 3 million customers to use its platform to make online purchases from international merchants, the firm announced Jan. 5.

U.S. online sales volume reached a record $32.6 billion during the 2010 holiday shopping season, up 12% from $29.1 million during the corresponding period a year earlier, according to data comScore Inc. released Jan. 5. ComScore’s data reflect e-commerce sales during the period from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.

Taiwan on Jan. 1 began taking initial steps toward creating an integrated transit-payment system by introducing multicard readers on Taipei’s bus network, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.