Retailers

As competition for clients intensifies and margins grow increasingly thin, many independent sales organizations are seeking ways to reduce costs, increase efficiency and stand out from competitors. One method gaining consideration is the use of digital signatures and contracts.

Smartphone-based transactions represent an opportunity to grow U.S. card acceptance, which largely has become commoditized because most brick-and-mortar merchants accept payment cards. However, the challenge for independent sales organizations and other resellers of smartphone-based point-of-sale products may be locating mobile-merchant clients, observers say.

Sterling Payment Technologies Inc. in November launched a merchant-security compliance program with the goal of ensuring Sterling’s merchants meet the criteria established by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.

Square Inc. finally has shared some of the details about its mobile card-acceptance system, but payments executives still feel as though they have not heard the whole story.

Restaurateurs may have another reason to use pay-at-the-table terminals from Ingenico S.A., which has added software to the devices to help lower the interchange rates for credit and debit card transactions.

A directive Visa issued last week should make it clear to online merchants that they are not allowed to offer consumers third-party offers without asking for their card information a second time, the card brand noted in an April 27 statement.

The Single Euro Payments Area, an initiative the European banking industry launched in 2002 to link European Union and other euro-based countries’ separate national payment systems into a standardized system, remains a work in progress. And not everyone believes the European Payments Council, which is responsible for the initiative that has seen several delays already, can complete the task by December 2012, as the European Commission has proposed.

Companies offering smartphone-enabled point-of-sale hardware and software applications are unlikely to capture business from providers of traditional wireless-payment terminals. The more likely outcome is that the two types of wireless devices will compliment each other, with the smartphone-enabled card acceptance attracting small mobile merchants that have avoided purchasing wireless terminals because of the cost, observers say.

As card readers that attach to mobile phones continue to make headlines in the payments space, an Austin, Texas-based software company is putting a new spin on the trend.

Apriva is offering training and educational tools to its ISO resellers to help increase their knowledge of and ability to sell wireless smartphone-enabled point-of-sale products, according to the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based wireless-payments provider.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC is weighing its next steps as the merchant processor nears its one-year anniversary as a joint venture between Fifth Third Bancorp and Advent International Corp., a Boston-based investment firm.

Criminals increasingly are using prepaid cards to replace cash, and payment organizations should understand the risks associated with the trend, Susan Smith, senior trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, told attendees last week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.

VeriFone Holdings Inc.’s upcoming VX point-of-sale terminals will be upgradeable to future Payment Card Industry security standards, the terminal maker says.

Though some merchants experienced severe financial difficulties during the recession and some went out of business, many others made prudent business decisions and scaled back spending to remain operational, Glenn S. Goldman, president and CEO of Capital Access Network Inc., told ISO&Agent Weekly last week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.

Hypercom Corp. plans to use its new point-of-sale products for use with Apple Inc.’s iPhone not only to reach mobile merchants but also to target brick-and-mortar retailers that want to expedite client purchases and avoid long lines at sales registers, Stuart Taylor, Hypercom vice president of global solutions and marketing, told ISO&Agent Weekly last week at the Electronic Transactions Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Las Vegas.

Discover Financial Services has expanded acceptance of its cards at merchant locations in the United States to its satisfaction after opening its network to third-party acquirers in 2007. The company’s goal now is to raise merchants’ awareness that they can accept Discover cards and to expand operations globally, says Gerry Wagner, Discover vice president of global acceptance.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council will update all three of its standards this year, and it eventually may place all on a three-year update cycle, says Bob Russo, the council’s general manager.

The potential to outfit 1.5 million vending machines with payment card readers has enticed Apriva, a wireless payment-services company, to start Apriva Vend, a cashless-payment service, the company announced today.

Convenience-store operators this month are launching a fresh campaign for interchange-rate reform with an interactive, animated Web video designed to explain to consumers how credit and debit card interchange fees hurt them economically.

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. has a new bank-sponsor agreement with Bancorp Bank of Wilmington, Del.