Retailers

At a pop-up market in New York's Union Square Park this week, locals and tourists squeeze past each other as they make their way through rows of candy cane-striped tents, perusing merchants' products as hurried commuters coming and going from a nearby subway entrance dart through the crowd.

The popularity of the Square payment-card reader has sparked a new market for accessories — smaller versions of the cases and sleeves people commonly buy for the iPhones which Square readers attach to.

Voltage Security, an encryption vendor, is touting Voltage Secure Stateless Tokenization technology, which the company says provides merchants and payment processors with a new approach to protecting card data.

The Electronic Transactions Association has wrapped up the first year of testing for its Certified Payments Professional credential, a designation intended to indicate knowledge of the acquiring industry.

American Express continues its move into a payments arena not often associated with the affluent customers served through the New York-based card network. It now accepts Amex card payments at gas stations commonly located in parking lots near Walmart stores.

The Electronic Transactions Association is remaining true to its original constituents in the acquiring business, even as it opens the doors to other types of companies, according to the trade group’s CEO.

Irish-based Monex Financial Systems Ltd. is looking for American independent sales organizations interested in profiting from card transactions made here by visitors from abroad.

Total System Services Inc., or TSYS, has signed a long-term agreement to provide point of sale services, authorization, settlement, reporting, managed services and risk mitigation for independent sales organizations that work with Merrick Bank, a subsidiary of CardWorks Inc.

First Data Corp. called 2012 the “year of universal commerce,” meaning commerce happens anywhere, anytime and on any type of device.

VeriFone Systems Inc., the largest maker of credit-card terminals, was sued by Creative Mobile Technologies LLC for more than $250 million over an agreement to place advertisements on screens in New York taxis.

Now that the Electronic Transactions Association has been administering the Certified Payments Professional credential for a full year, independent sales organizations’ executives and sales agents could start facing more pressure to obtain certification, an acquiring industry veteran says.

Since Square launched its mobile card reader, VeriFone Systems has worked feverishly to slow its rival's runaway momentum. The news that VeriFone is changing its strategy with its Sail reader is the latest in a long line of assaults and retreats.

VeriFone Systems Inc., the largest maker of credit-card terminals, is moving away from competing directly with Square Inc. in mobile payments, according to David Talach, VeriFone’s vice president of industry engagement.

Keeping up with technology could pose one of the greatest challenges for the acquiring industry in the coming year.

Visa Inc. attracted 50 banks and credit unions to its V.me digital wallet by offering a system that did not distance issuers from customer relationships and transaction data. But does the wallet hold the same appeal for the merchants that accept it?

Intuit's 2012 New Year resolution for its GoPayment card reader was to take it around the world. It did so in bookend fashion.

Like many New Year's resolutions, this one got off to a great start and then languished. Intuit started the year by offering its GoPayment reader in Canada. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's next significant international expansion was last week's push into the UK market with a pilot program called Intuit Pay.

Cheap travel and social media continue to connect people all over the world. Companies focusing on e-commerce and payments gateways could see success as the world becomes more globalized by helping merchants handle payments from those who want to spend beyond their borders.

Typical acquirers — including banks, processors and independent sales organizations — stand to lose up to 5% of their business next month because of problems with Internal Revenue Service 1099K reporting, a tax expert says.

Square and Lemon, two companies that offer mobile wallets on Apple's iPhone handsets, have updated their apps to work with Apple's Passbook wallet.

Square, the mobile-payments startup founded by Jack Dorsey, is giving small merchants the ability to sell gift cards to shoppers on the go, stepping up competition with eBay’s PayPal business.