Retailers

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC on Aug. 6 agreed to sell a majority stake in its lucrative processing business, RBS WorldPay, to two private equity firms for more than $3 billion.

Pivotal Payments says its integration with Pinnacle Cart, Desert Dog Marketing LLC’s e-commerce software designed for merchants to use on their websites, could help its sales agents increase their revenue by attracting more merchants.

Guest column

First Data Corp.’s formation of the Banc of America Merchant Services LLC alliance with Bank of America Corp. in June of last year is paying dividends for the transaction processor.

Pivotal Payments says its integration with Pinnacle Cart, e-commerce software Desert Dog Marketing LLC designed for merchants to use on their websites, could help its sales agents increase their revenue by attracting more merchants.

First Data Corp. on Aug. 10 reported a net loss attributable to the company of $171.2 million for the second quarter ended June 30, down from the $195.9 million loss the transaction processor reported during the same period last year. Revenues totaled $2.61 billion, up 18.1% from $2.21 billion, driven by the formation of the Banc of America Merchant Services LLC alliance.

Mall Networks, a manager of merchant-funded rewards programs, reported Monday that its fiscal 2010 revenue grew by more than 100%, and announced its renaming as Cartera Commerce Inc.

PayPal Inc. is planning to turn off its PayPal Plug-In service, which lets users fund purchases at merchants that do not typically accept PayPal.

The $3 billion price Advent International Corp. and Bain Capital LLC will pay for an 80% stake in RBS WorldPay, the payment-processing arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, may point to an imbalance in value between privately held and publicly held payment processors, suggests David J. Koning, a senior research analyst at Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co.

Arizona state government officials are stepping up efforts to thwart criminals from skimming consumers’ credit and debit card information at gasoline stations in response to a recent uptick of such incidents.

ILoveVelvet, a New York-based payment-technology company, says its new Velvet Suite products can enable merchants to use Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad devices as retail point-of-sale terminals.

HSBC Finance Corp. has promoted Patrick “Pat” Burke to CEO of the company’s U.S. consumer finance division. Burke also serves as senior vide president and CEO of HSBC’s credit card and retail business. He succeeds Niall Booker, who was recently promoted to CEO of HSBC North America Holdings Inc.

Global private equity firms Bain Capital and Advent International on Aug. 6 signed an agreement with The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC to acquire its subsidiary business, RBS WorldPay, for an enterprise value of up to £2.025 billion (US$3.2 billion or 2.44 billion euros), including a £200 million contingent consideration.

Shortages of key components cost Hypercom Corp. $6 million in second-quarter product revenue, despite strong demand for the company’s point-of-sale products and services, says Philippe Tartavull, Hypercom CEO and president, during an Aug. 4 conference call to discuss earnings with analysts.

Mindbody, a San Luis Opisbo, Calif.-based company that makes business-management software for health-and-fitness businesses, has become an independent sales organization to improve its profit margin and to secure more control over its relationships with merchants, says Rick Stollmeyer, Mindbody founder and CEO.

All U.S. merchant processors likely will benefit from anticipated reductions in debit card interchange rates once the Federal Reserve Board next year finishes its rate-setting task mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill President Obama signed into law in July. But they will need to be careful in how they share their savings, Paul Garcia, chairman and CEO of Global Payments Inc., told analysts July 27 while discussing the company’s fiscal fourth quarter earnings.

IPay POS Credit Card Terminal, the new version of the mobile-payment acceptance application called ProcessAway, now works with multiple gateways and comes with a card reader to accommodate card-present transactions, according to Randy Palermo, who developed the application that works on Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

SparkBase Adding Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare Integration

Merchant cash-advance company AmeriMerchant LLC’s merger with CanaFunding LLC this week is enabling ISOs to sell cash-advance services in either the U.S. or Canada, says David Goldin, AmeriMerchant president and CEO.

Point-of-sale terminal maker Hypercom Corp. late on Aug. 4 reported revenues of $103.9 million for the second quarter ended June 30, down 1.6% from $105.6 million during the same period last year. However, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company reported a $1.26 million net loss, in part because of component shortages that affected revenue; it reported net income of $1.26 million during the same period last year.