NEWSPayPal Inc., the payment subsidiary of eBay Inc., released significant statistics in its 2011 second quarter financial highlights. Second quarter results showed PayPal revenues increased 31 percent over the same period last year, with over $1 billion processed during the quarter.
International payments accounted for nearly half the company's total revenues. Total international payment volume was up 34 percent over last year to $28.7 billion. Also of note was PayPal's payment processing volume of nearly $3,650 per second, the equivalent of $315 million processed each day.
Three data breach notification and data security bills approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 22, 2011, are scheduled for Senate debate. The Judiciary Committee approved S. 1535, the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act of 2011, authored by Sen. Richard Leahy, D-Vt.; S. 1408, the Data Breach Notification Act of 2011, offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; and S. 1151, the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2011, also offered by Leahy.
It was the fourth time in as many sessions that Leahy's Personal Data Privacy and Security Act cleared the committee. The Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican member, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said he believes the legislation would overburden businesses with regulation, require too much notification and lead to more lawsuits against businesses.
For legislative updates, visit The Green Sheet Legislative Round Up at www.greensheet.com/legislation.php.
An antitrust investigation into the effort by the European Payments Council to standardize electronic payments was initiated by the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, Sept. 26, 2011. The EPC regulates payments on behalf of European bankers.
The European Commission is investigating the EPC initiative to assure standardization does not overly restrict competition with rules biased against new payment providers, especially providers not associated with banks. In 2010, the European Commission issued guidelines on how to avoid anti-competitive concerns in horizontal agreements like the one being considered by the EPC.
The commission said a complaint it received initiated its investigation. The investigation supersedes the authority of national members to investigate anti-competitive behavior. In Europe, national courts are prohibited from hearing cases in which a decision could conflict with a commission ruling.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara moved to amend his office's complaint against Full Tilt Poker.com to include charges Full Tilt ran a Ponzi scheme in the United States.
Full Tilt was started by poker professionals Raymond Bitar, Howard Lederer, Christopher Ferguson and Rafael Furst, all of whom are named in the amended complaint. The U.S. Attorney's amended charges allege the company defrauded players in the United States because it did not maintain enough funds on deposit in its online gambling accounts to repay all U.S. players.
In April 2011, the Justice Department filed a complaint against Full Tilt and two other Internet poker companies alleging the poker sites engaged in bank fraud, illegal gambling and money laundering. The U.S. domain name for Full Tilt was seized by the FBI shortly after the indictment, but the two sides reached an agreement that allows poker players to use the site to retrieve funds previously deposited with the company.
ACI Worldwide Inc. increased the pressure on S1 Corp. stockholders to sell in the wake of the Fundtech Ltd. decision to walk away from an S1 merger proposal. Fundtech revealed Sept. 15, 2011, it had accepted a binding offer from GTCR Fund X/A LP to acquire all of Fundtech's shares at $23.33 per share - a superior merger offer to the one S1 had proposed, Fundtech said.
The S1 board of directors continues to oppose ACI's acquisition offer, insisting the exchange offer is not in the best interests of S1 or its stockholders. S1 also claims the ACI offer contains conditions that may prevent the deal from being completed and that ACI will need debt financing to pay for the acquisition.
ACI responded by extending its exchange offer to S1 stockholders to Oct. 31, 2011, and reported that as of Sept. 27, 2011, a total of 12,965,097 shares of S1 stock had been tendered in the exchange offer.
ANNOUNCEMENTSBraintree Inc., an international online payment provider, reported it is now processing more than $8 million in online credit card payments each day - a 268 percent increase from 2010. The company expects to process more than $3 billion in payments in 2011.
Ezic Inc. recently enhanced its digital payment platform by offering new features and upgrades to its processing gateway. The Ezic version 2.8.5 software includes advanced billing and collection technology, Data Retrieval Interface 1.5, membership and revamped rebilling.
International financial services technology provider Fiserv Inc. said it will begin personalizing chip payment cards using the Europay/MasterCard/Visa (EMV) standard. EMVCo, the group responsible for EMV specification management globally, estimated that 1 billion EMV cards have been issued worldwide and that approximately 15.4 million POS terminals are currently equipped to accept EMV cards.
For the fifth consecutive year, Heartland Payment Systems Inc. was named a top technology innovator on the InformationWeek 500 List. Heartland was recognized for its E3 end-to-end encryption technology at the awards ceremony held Sept. 13, 2011, in Dana Point, Calif.
The Northeast Acquirers Association will hold its annual winter show from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, 2012, at the Grand Summit Resort & Conference Center in Mount Snow, Vt. NEAA Treasurer Jacques Breton said the NEAA is working on providing free shuttle bus service for conference attendees between the Albany, N.Y., airport and the ski resort.
Among the activities slated are a snow tubing race sponsored by SignaPay Ltd., followed by a cocktail reception and a charity poker tournament. Electronic Merchant Systems is backing a snow barn party after the closing reception. And EVO Merchant Services is sponsoring ski races, as well as skiing and snowmobiling for the less competitively inclined. A one-day lift ticket is included in the registration price. Register for the conference online at www.northeastacquirers.com; book hotel reservations at www.mountsnow.com/neaa.
Accel-KKR, a private equity firm investing in mid-market technology companies, made an equity investment in Paymentus Corp. in September 2011. Paymentus said it will use the investment to accelerate development, drive growth and "enhance the footprint of its real-time payment network." Paymentus offers electronic bill payment, presentment and customer communication technology and services.
US Dataworks Inc. released a cloud-based platform for automating walk-in bill payments called PayItFast. PayItFast handles all payment types including checks, cards and cash. The monthly subscription fee service is targeted at utility companies, government agencies, insurance companies and check cashing services where payments are accepted at multiple locations.
Visa Inc. reported total payment volume in Latin America and the Caribbean of $313 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 26.2 percent as of June 30, 2011. Visa attributed the recent growth in this emerging region to migration from cash to electronic payments and the company's strategic delivery of value-added products in mobile, digital money transfer and person-to-person payments.
Leaders in the western states financial services market were honored Sept. 19, 2011, when the Western Payments Alliance (WesPay) handed out its annual leadership awards at the 2011 Payments Symposium in San Diego, Calif. The George E. Lowther Award for Outstanding Service to the Payments Industry went to Wells Fargo Senior Vice President of Wholesale Internet & Treasury Solutions Christopher Huppert. The WesPay A.R. Zipf Award for Payments Systems Innovation went to PayPal.
PARTNERSHIPSSweden's Accumulate Group, a provider of mobile-related payment, banking, security and other services, and PayPal, have formed an alliance that will permit PayPal to use Accumulate's security platform, Mobile Everywhere. Platform users can add to or change mobile applications without having to re-download, reinstall or reactivate their application.
Alexander City, Ala.-based Aliant Bank selected Fidelity National Information Services Inc.'s Horizon Core Processing Platform for document management, electronic funds transfer processing and integrated card management. The bank will also rely on POS and ATM transactions processing over the FIS-owned NYCE Payments Network.
Cartera Commerce Inc., a provider of card-linked marketing solutions, inked a deal with TransFirst LLC, a Hauppauge, N.Y.-based ISO, to accelerate adoption of card-linked offers among small businesses across the United States. TransFirst will market and resell Cartera's card-linked advertising network to over 175,000 small businesses that utilize TransFirst for processing.
CheckAlt Payment Solutions, a provider of automated and electronic check processing, and ZipMark Inc., a mobile and online payments company, are partnering to make Check 21/remote deposit capture processing as seamless as accepting cash. CheckAlt's integration capabilities will help ZipMark pursue additional vertical markets, including real estate and utility companies, by eliminating much of the paperwork used in those business environments, sources said.
POS system manufacturer NCR Corp. entered a strategic partnership with Atlanta-based data mining firm Sparkfly to integrate Sparkfly's mobile marketing platform with NCR's Radiant/Aloha POS software designed for restaurants. Sparkfly's personalized smart phone application enables the delivery and redemption of digital offers and discounts at the POS.
Electronic medical records provider NexTech Systems Inc. established a relationship with payment processor Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC to streamline collection of funds for medical services rendered.
NexTech said its clients - over 3,500 surgeons and physicians worldwide - will be able to move patients through the checkout process quickly by accepting debit and credit card payments through NexTech software integrated with Chase Paymentech's back-end processing system.
ACH Direct Inc. subsidiary Payments Gateway is collaborating with MagTek Inc. to launch a new point-to-point encryption (P2PE) payment solution designed to maximize data protection and prevent data loss by encrypting information before it enters an organization's network or computer systems. The solution leverages MagTek's MagneSafe Security Architecture and the Payments Gateway platform, where the data is decrypted and transactions are settled.
Mobile commerce platform provider Roam Data Inc. and U.S. Cellular Corp. agreed to provide Roam Data's payments platform, Roampay X, to U.S. Cellular's 6 million customers. Roampay X provides secure mobile phone transactions via POS terminals and the Internet.
ACQUISITIONSFiserv Inc., a financial services technology provider, completed its purchase of CashEdge Inc., a consumer and business payment provider. CashEdge co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and President Sanjeev Dheer was named president of the new Fiserv division. CashEdge currently serves over 500 clients, including large financial institutions, and Fiserv represents approximately 16,000 financial institutions, investment firms and billers globally.
APPOINTMENTSWith over 20 years of bankcard industry acquiring experience, Shawn Douglas has taken the helm as Director of Business Development for MerchantService.com. Douglas will be responsible for developing the com-pany's merchant services business channels. In the past, he has held sales, management and business development positions with such firms as Fidelity National Bank, Moneris Solutions Inc. and Chase Paymentech.
Kalle Radage was named Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Payfirma Corp. Radage previously co-founded and ran the product and strategy teams for businesses owned by Nokia Inc. He also served as Senior Product Manager at Oracle Corp.
Karin Rytz was appointed General Manager for the BlueStar DACH region. In her new role, Rytz will oversee management and operations in the German region for the global distributor of solutions-based ADC, mobility, POS, RFID, digital signage, and ID and security technologies.
Rytz recently served on the management team for the Munich-based Panasonic POS Division.
Mark Sodon was installed as a Senior Vice President of OnePay, an ISO/MSP representing HSCB Bank USA. Sodon will be responsible for relationship development with OnePay's more than 400 ISOs. Sodon previously directed ISO sales and operations at OnePay's Canadian division.
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