Retailers

If consumers were worried about a government shutdown or stalled debt ceiling talks affecting the economy, they didn’t show it by holding off on credit card spending in October, a First Data Corp. report indicates.

Mobile point of sale terminals are projected to reach 46% market penetration by 2017, up from the 17% share of the point of sale terminal market that mobile systems held in 2012, according to a whitepaper by Mobey Forum.

The number of credit cards issued by banks and retailers hit five-year highs between January and August, according to the latest Equifax National Consumer Credit Trends Report.

Spire Payments’ point-of-sale terminals will be available to merchants in Australia through a partnership with independent sales organization Keycorp Services Ltd.

Brooklyn is teeming with New York natives and tourists alike, and the borough's merchants sometimes struggle to keep up with the activity. Several are using mobile point of sale systems from companies like ShopKeep to cut through the chaos.

The wireless carriers' Isis mobile wallet venture is launching a new program to build merchant support for its technology.

PayPal and MyCheck are going to New York's theater district to set the stage for mobile payments. The companies are targeting restaurants with MyCheck’s pay-at-the-table technology.

European point of sale technology provider Spire will be the sole supplier of mobile chip and PIN payment devices for Smart TPE, Credit Agricole's mobile point of sale initiative in France.

Square has updated the design of its Square Register app in an attempt to improve user navigation and provide a consistent experience across different operating systems such as Google's Android and Apple's iOS 7.

Nomad 2.0, a second-generation mobile EMV chip-and-PIN card reader from AnywhereCommerce, is designed to be a smaller and less expensive version of its 18-month-old predecessor.

The Electronic Transactions Association plans to keep expanding its advocacy, educational and networking efforts in the coming year.

VeriFone has launched UX Solutions, a suite of payment devices that support EMV-chip and mag-stripe payments.

Jusp, a mobile point of sale provider, announced a flat monthly fee ranging from 39 to 69 euros (approximately $53 to $93) to target midmarket merchants and large corporations.

The mobile point of sale vendor ShopKeep POS has updated its tablet-based point of sale with several new features designed to streamline its use.

Payments processor Cardis USA and mobile commerce vendor Spindle are joining with vending machine manufacturer Multi-max to enable mobile payments at its machines, where most consumers still buy coffee with cash.

NCR Corp. has updated its NCR Silver point of sale system for iPad, adding features that allow a small business to grow including support for multiple locations.

Square has eliminated holds and deposit limits for manually entered transactions in the U.S., and is marketing these changes to frustrated PayPal users.

SaaS-based technology provides a blended approach to remittance processing that enables financial institutions to outsource infrastructure responsibilities, while retaining the management of transaction processing, bank deposits and receivable updates.

Big players are entering the merchant cash advance business and the industry's smaller players are maturing. Meanwhile, the market is growing with the help of automated clearinghouse transactions.

Cynergy Data has named Afshin Yazdian as its new CEO, while outgoing CEO Kim Fitzsimmons will remain with the company as a member of the board and take on a strategic role with Comvest Partners, Cynergy's private equity investor.