Retailers

Hypercom Corp.’s stock rose slightly in morning trading Feb. 16 after the payment-terminal maker reported preliminary fourth-quarter net revenue of $140 million, up 19% from a year earlier.

Deborah McWhinney, the head of Citigroup's flagging personal banking and wealth management group, is leaving her post after a tumultuous two-year run in which she attempted to makeover the nation's third-largest bank following the spin-off of its Smith Barney brokerage unit in 2009.

MasterCard Worldwide plans to bring payment security to U.S. consumers through passcode-generating display cards, the card brand announced Feb. 14 at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Visa Inc. has joined forces with Starbucks Corp. in what may be one of the emerging mobile-payment industry’s first national promotions designed to improve a payment brand’s status within a mobile wallet.

VeriFone Systems Inc. has turned its PayWare Mobile point-of-sale service into the equivalent of a multipurpose Swiss Army knife for payment acceptance, a necessary step to introduce the device to a global audience, according to the San Jose, Calif.-based payment-terminal maker.

Long satisfied with offering merchants a purpose-built wireless point-of-sale terminal, Matt Freedman, chief operating officer at Total Merchant Services Inc., realized last year his independent sales organization needed to offer more to meet the needs of a broader mobile-merchant audience.

Garanti Bank is using VeriFone Systems Inc.’s Near Field Communication/contactless PIN-pad system in its nationwide rollout of an NFC mobile-payment initiative in Turkey, the payment-terminal maker announced Feb. 14.

MetroBank S.A. and Accertify, a leading provider of software, tools and strategies for preventing fraud, have formed a partnership to help merchants, banks and payment processors across Latin America to combat credit card fraud, the companies announced Feb. 15.

Hypercom Corp., which is being sold to VeriFone Systems Inc., said in a regulatory filing Monday that the combined companies should generate nearly $2 billion in revenue next year.

Merchant surcharges for debit and credit card purchases in the United Kingdom are unfair, and merchants should be upfront regarding any additional fees they might charge, contends Which?, a UK-based consumer-protection advocacy group.

VeriFone Systems Inc. is taking its PayWare Mobile point-of-sale service outside the United States for the first time and is adding acceptance for EMV chip-and-PIN cards and Near Field Communication-enabled devices, the company announced Feb. 14 at Mobile World Congress in Spain.

As European and Chinese payment card issuers steadily move to support EMV-only cards that lack a magnetic stripe to conduct transactions, global competitive pressure may force the U.S. to adopt EMV chip-and-PIN technology, a top exec from a major international card manufacturer contends.

Banks are still debating the use of two-factor authentication for account access, even though hackers are getting more cunning and the tech bellwether Google Inc. just endorsed the extra layer of security.

Until a few years ago, payment card processors and merchant acquirers found it relatively easy to incorporate biannual April and October updates of interchange-rate tables and other mandates from the payment networks into their systems.

The U.S. is closer to EMV readiness than many realize, and it may not cost as much as previously feared, suggests a newly crafted “roadmap” to U.S. adoption of EMV chip-and-PIN technology.

The Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai has expanded the use of its closed-loop Nol Card, which commuters have been using to pay for Metro fares, road tolls and parking in Dubai, a spokesperson confirms to Payments Source.

Global Payments Inc. has promoted James R. Hicks to president of its Global Payments Asia Pacific Ltd. unit, where he will oversee the merchant processor’s payment operations in 11 Asian countries, the Atlanta-based company announced Feb. 11.

Cineplex Entertainment, which supports 132 theaters in Canada serving more than 70 million visitors each year, is giving consumers the option to pay for tickets from their PayPal account, the Toronto-based company announced Feb. 11.

MasterCard Worldwide launched a beta version of its developer’s portal early last month, but the card brand has invited only about 1,000 programmers to participate, a MasterCard spokesperson said Feb. 10.

Vendors often tout their products in press releases and through other efforts seeking publicity. But sometimes they choose to keep things relatively low key.