ANNOUNCEMENTSPayment software provider and Europay/MasterCard/Visa (EMV) migration facilitator Cardtek Group officially launched Cardtek USA out of its new Chicago office. Cardtek USA seeks to streamline the EMV migration process by offering a secure "one-stop source" for secure payment solutions, Cardtek stated.
Mobile commerce firm Danal Inc. said it now offers the Mobile Operator Billing app for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Phone Store. Powered by Danal's BilltoMobile payment platform, the app enables consumers to make one-click purchases via Windows Phones and charge those purchases to monthly mobile phone bills.
Las Vegas-based ISO Electronic Commerce International added automated clearing house (ACH) processing services for businesses and merchants. ECI said its new ACH transaction processing capability is easy for merchants to set up and use. "Files from existing accounting systems can be imported without difficulty, and reports can be exported to assist in managing transactions," ECI stated. "In addition, transactions can be entered manually or set up on a recurring schedule."
EMV testing provider FIME expanded its services to offer Payment Card Industry - PIN Transaction Security (PCI PTS) testing. FIME said the new offering enables the European company to perform security evaluation for payment terminals and mobile POS (mPOS) solutions against the PCI PTS requirements set by the PCI Security Standards Council.
Big-data service provider and fraud manager G2 Web Services is in its 10th year of operation. Headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., and with sales offices in London; Sydney, Australia; and Shanghai, China, G2 provides near real-time merchant intelligence via its proprietary G2 Merchant Map. G2's official 10-year anniversary falls on Oct. 28, 2014.
One of Harbortouch's POS models was used as part of a bar renovation project on the "Bar Rescue" cable television show. The May 4, 2014, episode on Spike TV showed the remodeling team installing the Harbortouch Elite POS system at Thirsty's Roadside Bar in Grand Prairie, Texas, as a way to improve the bar's operations and help boost sales.
Paris-based POS terminal manufacturer Ingenico SA recorded 20 percent higher revenue growth in the first quarter of 2014 compared with the same quarter in 2013. Total revenue came from the combination of earnings from its Payment Terminal business (hardware, services and maintenance) and Transaction Services. "This performance is mostly based on our unique competitive positioning in a stronger market than expected," said Philippe Lazare, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Ingenico.
Smart wallet provider LoopPay Inc. won the Best of Show award at the FinovateSpring 2014 payment conference recently held in San Francisco. Loop CEO Will Wang Graylin showcased the company's hardware, software and security offerings, including the recently released smart wallet app LoopWallet. Contactless transactions are facilitated via Loop's patented Magnetic Secure Transmission technology.
New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority selected U.K.- and New York-based Masabi Ltd. to provide mobile ticketing solutions for both the Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road. The MTA will employ Masabi's JustRide mobile platform for ticketing and fare collection. The JustRide app allows users to purchase one-way, round-trip and 10-trip tickets, as well as weekly and monthly passes, using debit and credit cards.
The National Bank of Abu Dhabi won an award for its loyalty redemption card, the NBAD Stars Prepaid Card. The card was recognized in the Best Gift/Incentive Program Open and Closed Loop of the Year category at the Prepaid Summit: Middle East 2014 held in March at the Conrad Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
NCR Corp. said the NCR Silver iPad POS system for small businesses is now integrated with Intuit Inc.'s QuickBooks. Via Retail Intel, NCR's cloud-based service that automatically pulls sales data directly from the NCR Silver platform, QuickBooks users have access to features including shift management and cash reconciliation, a time clock, and tax filing options.
Revel Systems, a San Francisco-based mPOS facilitator, launched its first pop-up store in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square. The store location will be used by multiple micro merchants and leverage the popularity of the growing maker and do-it-yourself movement, Revel said.
San Francisco-based Square Inc. added three new features to Square Register designed to simplify merchants' operations and drive more business their way. The company said Square Pickup allows food service merchants to run rush hour more efficiently, while Offline Mode enables sellers to use Square's mobile register when temporarily without an Internet connection, and Inventory Tracking gives merchants a free way to track their item stock.
Swipely said its Summer '14 product release adds new capabilities to help multi-unit restaurant operators make smarter marketing, operations and finance decisions. Swipely's additions allow merchants to share and summarize customer profiles across multiple restaurant locations; track operating performance, such as sales trends at the brand level, across all locations; manage customer feedback aggregated from review sites; and enforce corporate controls over access to internal networks, including limiting user access to specific store locations.
Foreign currency exchange specialist World First opened a new office in Los Angeles to provide California residents with an alternative international money transfer service. "World First is changing the way people think about making international payments, providing a better way to transfer money overseas for everyone," said Christopher Russell, CEO at World First USA.
RESEARCHData compiled by The Strawhecker Group revealed who is benefiting most from Google word searches related to the payments industry. The 21-page report titled Trend Graphs of Payments Industry Google Search provides a pictorial of the companies that scored highest when users of the search engine keyed in word combinations like mobile card processing, bitcoin, mobile wallets, card brands, merchant acquirers and other common industry phrases.
Infinite Peripherals Inc. issued a white paper titled Four Distinct Areas of ROI of Mobile POS at Retail as a resource to retailers. The paper identifies the critical areas to consider when investing in a mobile POS system, including how it will impact operations and sales, how to calculate per-unit cost and qualitative factors such as how to engage customers in various scenarios.
In a recent survey of financial industry professionals conducted by ACI Worldwide Inc., 70 percent of respondents stated they believe real-time automated clearing house (ACH) payments will become a reality within the next two years; 86 percent felt it would add significant value for the business and corporate bank clients who would use the service to expedite payments.
According to an Aite Group LLC survey, 59 percent of U.S. consumers received both paper and electronic billing as of the third quarter of 2013; for 41 percent electronic billing was the only form of billing received. Americans reportedly paid more than 16.3 billion bills in 2013, of which nearly half were paid through digital channels.
According to data released by EMVCo, 2.37 billion EMV chip-enabled payment cards and 36.9 million EMV-ready payment terminals had been circulated globally as of the fourth quarter of 2013. And based on EMVCo's latest findings, adoption rates for EMV cards in regions where the cards had been implemented ranged from 17.4 percent to 81.6 percent, while EMV-ready terminals fared better with adoption rates ranged from 71.7 to 99.9 percent.
SIMalliance, a global nonprofit industry association dedicated to secure element (SE) implementation, released Secure Element Deployment & Host Card Emulation (HCE), which analyzes the advantages, limitations and risks associated with HCE. The report contends HCE will be good for the near field communication ecosystem, but at this stage, remains immature, unstandardized - and relative to SE-based deployments - vulnerable to malicious attack.
PARTNERSHIPS On-demand payment solution provider BillingTree extended it relationship with Ontario Systems LLC, an accounts receivable management technology and services provider. They have introduced an integrated electronic payments solution for the Artiva Healthcare revenue cycle management system being marketed by Ontario Systems to its healthcare clients.
EVO Snap, a division of EVO Payments International LLC, launched a new processing program in conjunction with omni-channel POS provider iConnect LLC. "We were leaving a lot of business on the table," said Subodh Gupta, iConnect founder and President. "Through our partnership with EVO, we're approving more than 95 percent of new customers and, with same-day approval and boarding, we're getting those customers up and running faster than ever."
Meritus Payment Solutions entered an agreement with X-Cart to integrate its Payment XP gateway with X-Cart's open-source e-commerce and shopping cart platform. With the integration X-Cart's online clients can now accept multinational forms of payment, manage fraud, and handle recurring billing through the gateway's secure customer vault, which also provides tokenization and advanced reporting capabilities, the companies stated.
Moki Mobility Inc., in partnership with North American Bancard, has agreed to manage NAB's mobile POS solution for in-store payment processing. Through the partnership NAB said it will deliver its PayAnywhere Storefront mobile payment platform via custom-built, in-store kiosks and Moki's Launcher program will provide monitoring and tracking.
Net Element Inc. and Womply partnered to make Womply's merchant analytics platform available through Net Element's Unified Payments brand under the product name Unified Insights. The new product's online dashboard will provide merchants a comprehensive view of business performance based on such criteria as revenue, online reputation, social media information, and other critical customer data, the companies reported.
Prepaid card and financial services provider NetSpend, a TSYS Company, entered a partnership with Western Union to develop an innovative prepaid card program through the companies' combined distribution networks. Details on card pricing, features and availability were not available, but are expected to be released closer to launch time later in 2014.
Total System Services Inc. expanded its tablet-based POS offerings by forming a strategic alliance with ShopKeep POS, a developer of iPad cloud-based POS software designed to help small merchants start, manage and grow their businesses, the companies said. Under the agreement, TSYS plans to offer ShopKeep to its base of merchant clients.
Cashless vending systems provider USA Technologies Inc. formed an alliance with BYNDL Inc. to integrate its mobile marketing and payment services as an option for USAT's more than 6,000 ePort Connect vending customers. According to USAT, ePport operators will now have access to loyalty, coupon and gamification capabilities, as well as consumer preference and purchase data.
Worldpay Inc. launched an e-commerce module via hybris, an SAP company, which gives hybris platform customers access to Worldpay's global payment platform. The launch coincided with Worldpay joining the hybris Extend Partner Program. "By joining the Extend Partner Program we can continue to work with hybris to offer the best e-commerce payment services to global customers," said Kevin Dallas, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Worldpay.
ACQUISITIONSVantiv Inc. entered an agreement to acquire Mercury Payment Systems LLC for an aggregated sum of $1.65 billion, adding Mercury's network of more than 3,000 POS software developer and dealer partners to the Vantiv platform. "Bringing the companies together will dramatically enhance our distribution and technology capabilities to serve a number of large and growing industry verticals," said Charles Drucker, President and CEO of Vantiv.
Georgia-based Veracity Payment Solutions agreed to purchase Minnesota-based Vanco Services LLC for an undisclosed amount. Under the agreement, Veracity and Vanco will be rebranded as Vanco Payment Systems. Additionally, Vanco President and Chief Manager Jeanne Spencer Rose will continue to manage the Minnesota business as a member of the new entity's executive team.
APPOINTMENTSCapping a months-long executive search headed by its former CEO Tom Dailey, 2Checkout appointed Shawn Budde its new CEO.
Budde's more than 25 years of industry experience include executive roles at Citibank, Capital One and ZestFinance, as well as data analytics experience at Sears Holdings Corp. Dailey, an active investor in 2Checkout, will continues to serve on the company's board of directors.
Tanya Castle joined private-label gateway provider Ezic Inc. as Director of Reseller Development. With over seven years of experience in client relationship management, Castle will provide sales support to Ezic resellers and implement all future system training, Ezic reported.
Double Diamond Group LLC launched Double Diamond Payments Research and tapped industry veteran and research professional Rick Oglesby to be its Senior Research Analyst and Consultant.
Double Diamond said DDPR will fill an unmet need for in-depth research that focuses on merchant acceptance by focusing on conducting focused primary research that will deliver qualitative information and actionable data.
Global payment gateway, BlueSnap hired former Braintree executive James Olver as its Director, Sales and Business Development. Olver, who is based in London, will focus on the company's European expansion. BlueSnap reported he has already secured offices at Rainmaking Loft, a startup hub in London dedicated to ambitious high growth technology startups.
Bank of America Merchant Services appointed Tim Tynan as its CEO and Kevin Race as Chief Financial Officer. Most recently, Tynan was Managing Director and Executive Officer for Citibank Japan Ltd's Transaction Services Division and served as Region Head, as well. Race mostly recently served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Mortgage Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
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