Retailers

PayPal Inc. has recast its offerings for small merchants, a move it says builds on its recent launch of the PayPal Here portable card reader.

The availability announced last month of ACI Worldwide Inc.’s newest integrated payment service is a step in the right direction to prepare merchant acquirers, retail banks, and ATM and payment processors for market changes ahead, one analyst contends.

Global Payments Inc.’s massive data breach underscores the need for the U.S. to embrace the EMV standard without delay, at least one chip card proponent contends.

American Express Co. is working with Transaction Network Services Inc. to provide a payment-gateway service for e-commerce.

Two weeks before bitterly contested regulations regarding its debit cards went into effect in the fall, MasterCard Worldwide threw a party in New York. The company wanted to trumpet its commitment to the newest technology in payments, including a role in the about-to-launch Google Wallet, which lets a handful of eligible consumers buy chewing gum or bottled water by waving their smartphones around. Executives at the event were determinedly festive.

There’s a train pulling into the station, and it’s right on time.

The Global Payments Inc. breach and others like it suggest banks should rethink how they protect card data.

A chip-and-signature route to U.S. EMV adoption certainly would be less painful for banks and merchants than would the chip-and-PIN approach used most everywhere else, but taking the easy way out carries risk.

Global Payments' response to the data breach disclosed last week, as well as the card networks' response, followed a familiar script.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers are calling for immediate action to pass long-stalled data-security legislation in the face of last week’s news of a massive data breach at cards processor Global Payments Inc. (see story).

A technical problem affecting the Visa network barred consumers from using their credit and debit cards for about 45 minutes on Sunday, the cards company said.

Braintree has opened the door to its online payment services to more than 110,000 merchants using Magento Inc.’s eCommerce Solutions as its online shopping cart, the company announced March 29.

Global Payments Inc. now confirms it is the source of the huge breach affecting cards carrying the major network brands (see story).

Ingenico SA plans to provide wireless terminals for more than 500 retail stores throughout the Canary Islands to support consumers using the Cajasiete Sincontacto contactless card, the French terminal maker announced March 30.

TenPay has signed a strategic agreement to provide Taikang Life Insurance Co. Ltd. online payment and settlement services, the China-based third-party payments provider announced this week.

If the Merchant Advisory Group is nothing else, it sure has been a persistent voice in supporting chip-and-PIN card transactions as the most-secure option for eventual U.S. acceptance of EMV smart cards.

Yespay International Ltd. has added advanced encryption to its global card-payment service, the London-based company announced this week.

Carpet cleaners, window cleaners, gardeners and operators in other trades working individually or with small companies traditionally have not accepted payment cards because of the costs involved. Acceptacard Ltd. is hoping to resolve the expense dilemma, at least in the United Kingdom.

With mobile-payment technology advancing seemingly at the speed of a mobile payment itself, one has to wonder how long it might be before consumers wouldn’t need, or even possess, plastic cards to conduct transactions.

MasterCard Worldwide plans to offer a new tool to help merchants mitigate the risk of fraud in online transactions.