Retailers

First Data Corp. is giving the name “Universal Commerce” to the company’s campaign to combine online and offline shopping and loyalty rewards.

As new card-fraud controls emerge, even cards used to purchase cocktails aboard airplanes are getting closer scrutiny.

If PayPal Inc. strikes with a new payment application, it stands to reason Square Inc. would respond with a new twist on its mobile-payment service.

Unobtrusive until now, a set of unrelated security requirements is about to become pretty unpopular, and costly.

A recent acquisition is enabling Trustwave to add malicious-software detection to the data-security scans the company performs to check compliance with Payment Card Industry data security standards.

Iovation Inc. considers protecting online merchants from hackers looking to steal payment card data a top priority, but the security vendor also can boast of some crime-solving skills.

As traditional and emerging payment providers scrap over many aspects of the mobile-payments infrastructure being built in the U.S., an overriding concern for consumers and industry leaders for emerging payments of all types continues to be security.

A Singapore-based company last week announced the planned launched of a mobile-payment service that uses a card-reader device similar to the one offered by Square Inc. and other companies.

Speculation about one of the world’s largest payment processors going public in early 2012 had potential investors humming last summer. On March 22, Vantiv Inc. turned eight months of speculation into reality with its initial offering on the New York Stock Exchange, expected to raise $500 million for the Cincinnati-based processor.

A federal court has rejected civil claims brought by five credit unions and one bank stemming from the massive 2008 data breach at Heartland Payment Systems that exposed millions of cardholders to fraudulent transactions.

Discover Financial Services is partnering with the operator of Puerto Rico’s ATM and debit network as part of the payment card company’s ongoing effort to increase acceptance abroad by teaming with local networks.

Industry debates centering on the eventual U.S. conversion to EMV smart card acceptance at point-of-sale terminals have taken on several layers.

The Internal Revenue Service is hoping to keep merchants honest by checking up on their transaction volume. That’s fine, but the fallout is affecting independent sales organizations, their acquirer partners and their merchant clients

In a move to open the e-commerce market between Taiwan and China, Taipei-based E. Sun Commercial Bank Ltd. has entered into a partnership with Alipay Inc., China’s leading online payment service provider.

A top official at Australia’s central bank says the institution will move to ban businesses in the country from imposing excessive credit card surcharges on their customers.

It sounded like a good idea 10 years ago, but not much makes sense any longer regarding Europe establishing a third card scheme to compete with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide.

EMerchantPay Group Ltd. is partnering with WorldTicket to provide smaller airline operators an easier way to accept and process online payments for plane fares, the online payment processor announced March 19.

Premier Health Exchange Inc. has formed a business division to deliver electronic payments to health care providers upon settlement of valid and payable medical claims and reconciliation, the provider of health care cost management services announced March 19.

One of South Korea’s major card issuers faces a boycott beginning April 1 from the country’s large small-retailer segment upset over the institution favoring a larger retailer with a much lower card-acceptance fee.

How long will U.S. merchants wait to fully upgrade their point-of-sale terminals to the EMV standard?