Retailers

Though it established a two-tier rate structure to accommodate issuers exempt from new caps on debit card interchange established by the Federal Reserve Board, Visa Inc. made only minor changes to the rates acquirers use to determine how much they pay card issuers with less than $10 billion in assets.

Transaction processor TransFirst has purchased RST Ventures Inc., an electronic payment processing services provider that does business as US Merchant Services, TransFirst announced Oct. 5.

The Secure Remote Payment Council reached a watershed moment of sorts last month when it cosponsored a one-day symposium with the Federal Reserve Board of Chicago.

Hypercom USA has changed its name to Equinox Payments LLC in a move that one analyst says should take no one by surprise.

Citing strong execution across each of its businesses, Global Payments Inc. on Oct. 4 reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $542.8 million, up 23.3% from $440.1 million during the same period last year.

OfficeMax Inc. customers may tap and pay using the Google Wallet mobile phone payment application at new checkout terminals the retailer has placed in more than 100 of its stores, the office-supply company announced Oct. 3.

Europe’s lingering debt crisis likely will cause some European banks to be wary of adhering to a pending deadline to accept euros as a common currency for electronic cross-border payments as part of the Single Euro Payments Area for eurozone countries, new research indicates.

Each merchant seeking to comply with Payment Card Industry data-security standard requirements grapples with different challenges, but insights from security experts at McDonald’s Corp. and British Airways recently shed light on a few common headaches companies face in securing card data.

Ingenico SA’s Incendo Online product has become the first “smart client” system to comply with the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council’s PIN Transaction Security standards, the company announced Oct. 3.

The vast majority of companies continue to fall short of complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard during their initial audit, with 79% failing and only 21% getting a passing grade, contends a report Verizon Communications Inc. released Sept. 28.

A transit open-loop fare collection pilot in New Jersey that uses a Visa-branded prepaid debit card could help change the traditional notions about how to distribute a general-purpose reloadable product to financially underserved consumers, notes an industry observer.

Isis announced on Sept. 27 that several companies will launch mobile devices that implement its NFC and technology standards.

Each merchant seeking to comply with Payment Card Industry data-security standards faces specific challenges based on its business processes, but this year a few common themes are emerging globally, Jeremy King, European director of the PCI Security Standards Council, tells PaymentsSource.

CHICAGO—Last week, the PCI Security Standards Council pushed advanced encryption as a way to protect consumers’ card data. But one point-of-sale vendor executive contends authentication at every step of the payments process would work better to combat fraud.

Customer credit card data was not endangered during last week’s security breach of a small portion of websites hosted by GoDaddy.com Inc., a company executive says.

Responding to merchant complaints that their payment network would not allow them to switch to a less-expensive processor, gateway provider FeeFighters announced Sept. 21 plans to launch an online-payment service that simplifies the ability to make such changes.

SAN FRANCISCO–Independent sales organizations and agents no longer have to turn down business from merchants that also want point-of-sale systems with card-acceptance services, a presenter here at the Western States Acquirers Association Eighth Annual Conference told attendees Sept. 21.

SAN FRANCISCO–To turn online social media into business tools, independent sales organizations should give their communications a personal spin on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, according to panelists speaking here Sept. 22 at the Eighth Annual Western States Acquirers Association Conference.

A London-based payment-processing and fraud-prevention company says it has created a way to detect fraudulent online credit card use more quickly by providing merchants and card issuers with identical cardholder data and transaction histories.

SAN FRANCISCO–Owning a merchant-services independent sales organization can bring financial and personal independence. But starting one up requires hard work, long hours and a significant amount of cash.