Retailers

Seth Priebatsch, the 24-year-old founder and head of the mobile payment system LevelUp, has made his company a serious player in the emerging payments market — yet he also sports the less-than-serious job title of "chief ninja." The nickname, he explains, has much to do with his approach to running a business.

Walmart and the other Merchant Customer Exchange members recently announced they would opt for a software-based mobile wallet instead of one based on Near Field Communication hardware. Is this a blow to NFC's future or does the technology have enough supporters to eventually change how people pay?

The concept of making anonymous online transactions is in the spotlight because of the prominence of the digital currency Bitcoin, but most consumers remain uneasy with the cryptocurrency's instability and risk. An alternative for the privacy-minded might sprout from Tor, or The Onion Router.

PayPal has won repeated partnerships with large merchants for its new point of sale payment system, but it paced itself with consumer adoption — a strategy the eBay unit seeks to change in 2013.

As technology companies move into the payments industry, a Silicon Valley data company is providing tools intended to help old-school acquirers maintain market share.

Square has built its reputation as a quick and simple way for micro-merchants to accept card payments, but the company says it has proven it can serve the more demanding needs of larger retailers.

PayPal Inc., pushing ahead with its drive to become the payment option of choice at the point of sale, has entered an agreement with hardware maker NCR Corp.

"We're open to partnering and playing with the existing networks, but not under the existing rule base," says Jamie Henry, senior payment director of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. "The existing rules that are in place for card-based payments are not going to be acceptable for mobile-based payments."

VeriFone Systems announced Jan. 14 a suite of payment products, including an iPad mini version of its Payware Mobile card reader, a similar sleeve for the iPhone 5 and VeriFone HQ, a cloud-based system that allows retailers to monitor their terminals and manage their brands.

A German banking committee has approved an Ingenico SA payment terminal as the first to accept contactless payments in the country under a new contactless pay system called giorgo.

Some prominent mobile wallets today rely on NFC as the primary method of making payments. These include the mobile carriers’ Isis venture and Google’s mobile wallet. Others, such as PayPal, consider NFC optional. The mega-retailers’ Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) venture, which has yet to release a product, promises a software-based alternative to NFC, storing card data in the cloud and using bar codes to conduct transactions.

The acquiring industry's established players are concerned about tech companies entering the business, but they're doing something about it – often by joining forces with the new kids.

Ingenico SA agreed to offer Shift4 Corp.'s gateway offering as part of the French terminal maker's point-to-point encryption portfolio.

Bancsource Inc. is handling first-line and second-line maintenance of International Bank of Commerce's 313 Diebold ATMs in Texas and Oklahoma.

Groupon's push into the payments business continues with an update that brings its mobile card reader to Android phone users.

Acquirers consider the Payment Card Industry data security standards slightly more important as a source of revenue than as an approach to security, new survey data indicates.

Cezar Butu of Romania, who pleaded guilty to taking part in hacking terminals at hundreds of U.S. Subway sandwich shops from 2009 to 2011, was sentenced this week to 21 months in prison.

It's been more than two months since Lower Manhattan was engulfed by flood waters from Superstorm Sandy and many merchants are still without the ability to accept credit and debit cards.

The ZingCheckout iPad application is now available on the App Store with integration for PaySaber Clip, a USAePay mobile point of sale product.

AJB Software Design Inc. plans to announce Friday its participation in the Visa POS Solutions Program (VPSP), which AJB says could allow it to link Visa's digital wallet, V.me, to the point of sale.