Retailers

The payment processor Vantiv has agreed to buy Mercury Payment Systems LLC for $1.65 billion to expand its services for cloud-based payments integrated into other technology, says Vantiv president and CEO Charles Drucker.

Apple will be ready to accept Near Field Communication payments from phones in its stores, even though none of its consumer devices support NFC out of the box.

Square has removed its cloud-based Wallet app from the Apple iTunes and Google Play stores, apparently to make room for a new app called Square Order.

As more merchants demand mobile technology to accept payments in their stores, vendors like Total System Services must diversify their offerings.

Swedish mobile payment company iZettle has raised $55 million (€40 million) in Series C funding to expand its operations.

Contactless payment cards may never have had strong footing in the U.S. to begin with, but perhaps the biggest sign of the technology's downfall is JPMorgan Chase's admission that its Blink cards never quite caught on.

NCR Corp. has integrated its NCR Silver iPad point of sale system with Retail Intel, a cloud-based service provider that can pull in sales data from QuickBooks.

The payment terminal maker VeriFone announced the nomination of Jonathan I. Schwartz to its board of directors and that two of its current board members, Leslie Denend and Jeff Stiefler, will not stand for reelection.

India's merchants are beginning to embrace mobile card readers, fueled by the nation's growing dependence on payment cards and smartphones.

Total Systems Services (TSYS) is partnering with ShopKeep POS to extend the processor's range of mobile and tablet-based point of sale offerings.

Chase Paymentech has launched Mobile Dashboard, an interactive reporting display for merchants.

American Express Co. is ready for its new small business program, OptBlue, to take the spotlight after several months of testing and a soft launch with acquirers.

James B. Lipham is retiring as senior executive vice president and chief financial officer at Total System Services Inc.

North American Bancard (NAB) is adding technology from Moki in an attempt to secure and manage its in-store mobile point of sale system.

Security can be difficult to improve at gas stations because payment hardware is built into the pumps, making it costly and difficult to upgrade. First Data and VeriFone are teaming up to overcome this challenge.

Bringing a point of sale terminal to market isn't as easy as it used to be. Since the introduction of contactless and mobile payment tech, the number of tests a manufacturer must pass for certification is "unbelievable," executives at U.K.-based Spire Payments say.

Key decision makers in the payments industry recently gathered for SourceMedia's 2014 Card Forum and Expo. They discussed the trends shaping the industry and their own strategies for surviving the challenges ahead. Here are a few highlights.

Revel Systems is offering a new accessibility bundle for its tablet-based point of sale system.

Square has launched an order-ahead feature and other services to boost its appeal to brick-and-mortar merchants, but history has shown that merchants can be fickle about which features they'll pay more to use.

Viableware has added the ability for full-service restaurants to accept EMV-chip cards with its handheld card reader, Rail.