Retailers

WASHINGTON – Senator Dick Durbin insisted yesterday he will fight every effort to delay the pending implementation of his initiative to lower interchange fees paid to credit unions and banks.

As the health care industry eyes new systems to streamline and improve the collection of payments from patients, New York-based Phreesia Inc. is promoting a tablet-like device that records patients’ personal and insurance information and doubles as a card-payment terminal.

A year after testing mobile capabilities with its customers, Wow Bao, an Asian restaurant with three Chicago locations, is planning to launch a mobile gift card program with Mocapay Inc. by the end of April, PaymentsSource has learned.

The ongoing fight between Square Inc. and rival VeriFone Systems Inc. around payment security highlights the lack of common technical standards for mobile acceptance devices.

ORLANDO, Fla.–Social-network participation is approaching 1 billion consumers globally across such different platforms as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. But prepaid industry executives and merchants are split about how the medium could improve closed-loop gift card sales.

A federal judge has dismissed a shareholder class-action lawsuit brought against VeriFone Systems Inc. following a restatement of three quarters from its 2007 fiscal year caused by accounting errors, VeriFone announced March 9.

Hundreds of neighborhood businesses are calling on the Federal Reserve Board to proceed with the debit interchange provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act in hopes of passing on the savings back to their communities.

The expanding array of services offering merchants advanced encryption of sensitive payment card data is causing competition to heat up among purveyors already jockeying for dominance by touting each product’s specific advantages.

The claims by competitor VeriFone Systems Inc. that Square Inc.’s mobile credit card reader is insecure are unfair and inaccurate, Square’s chief executive contends.

VeriFone Systems Inc. is taking off its gloves in the battle for mobile payment acceptance, claiming rival Square Inc.'s device can be adapted to use for fraud.

PHOENIX–Consumer preferences for paying by credit or debit card typically are too deeply entrenched for merchants and banks to succeed easily in steering customers to one or the other option for financial reasons, one banking industry analyst contends.

A federal judge has dismissed a shareholder class-action lawsuit brought against VeriFone Systems Inc. following a restatement of three quarters from its 2007 fiscal year caused by accounting errors, VeriFone announced March 9.

Hoping to appeal to small merchants looking for a means to process payment card transactions through mobile devices, Impact PaySystem LLC has begun offering a card-swipe device from iPhoneSwiper, initially for free, the companies announced March 5.

Executives at Global Cash Access Holdings Inc. are seeing positive signs ahead, particularly in international markets, but revenue continued to decline in the fourth quarter of 2010.

ORLANDO, Fla. — As the infrastructure to support digital gifting continues to increase, why does plastic still heavily dominate the industry?

The banking industry’s fraud-protection initiatives are having an effect in the United Kingdom, as fraud losses related to payment cards, checks and online banking decreased last year, according to recent research by the UK Payments Council.

Customers of Singapore Airlines Ltd. now may pay for their flights using their PayPal Inc. accounts, according to the Singapore-based airline.

Citizens in the Indian state of Punjab may pay their electricity bills online using bankcards under a new service the Punjab State Power Corp. launched on March 1.

ORLANDO, FLA.–Companies increasingly are using prepaid debit cards as an incentive to drive customer loyalty and to reward employees, and merchants are benefiting because consumers generally are spending more than the value loaded into their card accounts, according to new research commissioned by Total System Services Inc., or TSYS.

American Express Co. cardholders that attend the South by Southwest Interactive music festival in Austin, Texas, later this week will be able to secure merchant discounts with their cards through Foursquare Labs Inc., the location-based mobile system that rewards consumers for using its service. Media reports say the two companies are piloting the system with 60 merchants at the festival and are offering a “spend $5, save $5” promotion.