ISO & Agent

Consumers, banks and merchants all want faster payments, but new technology only seems to be making the process slower.

E-commerce is eroding the appeal of shopping malls, so the operators of some of the largest shopping centers are starting to dish out their own share of digital disruption.

When TableSafe launched in 2011 under the name Viableware, it was a simpler time in payments technology and the company had a simpler product to offer — a tablet-like check holder that lets customers complete card payments without leaving the table.

Working to help corporations streamline their processes for business-to-business transactions, Total System Services Inc. has launched a new commercial payment product leveraging virtual account numbers.

While the current phase of the U.S. chip card migration is still far from the finish line, attention is turning to the 'next' EMV migration at gas stations, which figures to be just as challenging.

Heartland Payment Systems has leveraged newly purchased merchant marketing company Beanstalk Data to build a restaurant analysis service.

Google is helping developers cut steps out of the path to accepting digital payments with several key moves unveiled around the Google I/O developers conference taking place this week.

Total System Services Inc. has announced an agreement with Featurespace to apply machine-learning technology to fight fraud.

Visa's rules for card acceptance exceed 800 pages — plus supplements — and MasterCard's are nearly 300 pages. But even though the card networks have explained their expectations in painstaking detail, the difference between strict rules and mere guidelines is much blurrier when finally given to the merchant.

Back in 2014, Dekkers Davidson, then CEO of the Merchant Customer Exchange, declared that the mobile wallet venture would draw inspiration from Uber and be just as disruptive to financial services as the popular ride-sharing app was to the taxi industry. But Uber's success stems largely from its decision to make payments invisible, whereas MCX was developing its CurrentC wallet to do just the opposite.

Mobility's incursion into merchant services is normally treated as a threat to independent sales organizations and legacy acquirers, who will find themselves on the outside as technology-based services take over the store.

When Walmart switched on Walmart Pay this week at 600 stores in two states, it marked the beginning of a new era, when merchants finally take the reins in mobile payments — and, by extension, the future of digital commerce.

The Merchant Customer Exchange, a retailer-backed mobile wallet venture of over three years in the works, has postponed its plans for a national rollout of its mobile wallet.

Stadiums, concert halls and other entertainment settings have long been venues in which terminal providers like NCR or Oracle would likely have units in place, offering a vast array of functions tailored to those businesses.

Square, which has been aggressively adding merchant services to enhance its mobile payments product, has added an invoice scheduling feature to add flexibility to merchant payments.

More than seven months after the EMV liability shift, the majority of U.S. retail locations still haven’t upgraded their payment terminals to accept chip cards, with some small and midsize businesses citing the difficulty of getting their equipment tested and certified by appropriate organizations.

While Walmart's lawsuit against Visa this week centers on authorization and routing methods, the Debit Network Alliance LLC — a group of independent debit networks — is also taking issue with EMV routing in addressing how terminal software is handling the choices presented to consumers.

Citigroup is testing Bluetooth beacon technology in a pilot that gives customers cardless access to branch ATMs after business hours, among other services.

Walmart and Visa have had a long and volatile relationship, and the retailer's latest lawsuit against the global card brand gives voice to a struggle that many other companies are too small to fight.

To expand the reach of its global e-commerce services, Ingenico ePayments is building up a vast network of connections to merchant acquirers, hoping to gain a competitive edge as the demand grows for omnichannel payments.