Retailers

Pinnacle Corp., an Arlington, Texas-based point-of-sale system maker, says it is offering payment-security compliance services from Vendor Safe Technologies to its convenience store merchants. Merchants will pay a monthly fee for the service, which covers network security and data access controls, firewalls and monitoring.

Despite the overwhelming share the 10 largest acquirers have of the U.S. merchant-transaction business, smaller acquirers have enough room to develop their own niches, according to a recent Mercator Advisory Group Inc. annual report on the acquiring industry.

Visa Inc. has launched a micropayment service in Australia that supports consumer payments for downloadable content such as movies, music and games.

MasterCard Worldwide has promoted Ajay Banga, president and chief operating officer, to chief executive officer, effective July 1. Banga also was named a member of MasterCard’s board of directors. Banga succeeds Joseph W. Selander, who will become executive vice chairman until his retirement on Dec. 31. MasterCard also promoted Alfredo Gangotena to chief marketing officer from global products and solution lead for MasterCard in Europe. Gangotena replaces Lawrence Flanagan, who is retiring.

Visa Inc. says it intends to work with merchants that fail to meet two July 1 payment-security deadlines.

From the June 24, 2010, issue of ISO&Agent Weekly.

From the June 24, 2010, issue of ISO&Agent Weekly.

From the June 24, 2010, issue of ISO&Agent Weekly.

From the June 24, 2010, issue of ISO&Agent Weekly.

From the June 24, 2010, issue of ISO&Agent Weekly.

Accelerated Payment Technologies Inc. hopes its recent name change will further its ambitions to sign up more merchants for its point-of-sale processing services. It also is looking for a bit of help from software vendors.

Independent sales organization Eureka Payments LLC has no ambition to be a one-size-fits-all merchant-services company. Instead, the Eureka, Calif.-based start-up is pursuing only mobile merchants and those accepting card-not-present transactions.

Point-of-sale terminal makers want to be known for more than solely selling hardware. All three of the major terminal makers–Ingenico S.A., Hypercom Corp. and VeriFone Systems Inc.–are turning to recurring service revenue to bolster their financial results.

Paul A. Rianda is an attorney who has specialized in providing legal advice to the bankcard industry for more than 10 years. His e-mail is paul@riandalaw.com.

World Wide Payment Solutions To Process With Cynergy Data

Point-of-sale terminal makers want to be known for more than solely selling hardware. All three of the major terminal makers–Ingenico S.A., Hypercom Corp. and VeriFone Systems Inc.–are turning to recurring service revenue to bolster their financial results.

Industry consensus is mounting to suggest that some form of the debit-interchange amendment crafted by U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., will be included in the reconciled financial-reform bill. But top payments-consulting firms continue to parse the amendment’s potential effects.

Ingenico S.A. anticipates generating 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in annual revenue by 2013, the France-based point-of-sale terminal maker announced June 9 during an investor’s presentation.

TaxiEpay, a unit of Australia-based Live Group, has begun deploying more than 3,500 Hypercom Corp. terminals to support a new payment card-acceptance system for taxis in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based terminal maker announced June 8.

Merchant acquirers that fail to follow Visa Inc.’s safeguards to prevent processing certain high-risk merchants’ transactions face paying $100 per charge-back on top of regular penalty fees under a program Visa announced to its acquirers in March.