NEWSNACHA - The Electronic Payments Association has approved a new rule governing mobile ACH payments. The rule incorporates mobile ACH into a category known as WEB, requiring mobile payments to use the WEB Standard Entry Class (SEC) code.
Devon Marsh, Senior Vice President at Wells Fargo & Co. and leader of the Rules Work Group on mobile ACH payments, said mobile payments share a similar "technology profile" with Internet payments. "We therefore have applied the NACHA operating rules for consumer Internet payments to consumer mobile payments," he said.
The NFC Forum, an organization that promotes near field communication (NFC) technology, announced the winners of the forum's Global Competition 2010 at an awards ceremony in Sweden. In the commercial track, the award for Best NFC Service of the Year went to Austria-based Nexperts GmbH. Nexperts said its Touch & Pay technology enables self-service shopping. The customer's NFC-enabled phone provides access to the store, a virtual shopping basket and the payment terminal. The principle can be extended to rural areas or countries without a POS payment infrastructure.
ANNOUNCEMENTSCannabis Medical Solutions Inc. will soon begin a pilot program of its closed-loop payment network for marijuana dispensaries within the state of Colorado. CMSI provides secure financial transactions, merchant processing, accounting and insurance services to legal medical marijuana dispensaries around the country.
The banking industry has hesitated to meet the processing needs of marijuana dispensaries in states where medical marijuana has been legalized, forcing cash-only transactions, according to CMSI.
Coalfire Systems Inc., a PCI Qualified Security Assessor, determined that VeriFone Systems Inc.'s VeriShield Protect encryption solution meets all Visa Inc. Data Field Encryption Guidelines. Coalfire found that VeriShield Protect integrates securely with PC-based POS systems or cash registers.
The Electronic Transactions Association unveiled a new logo that will be used across all ETA events, products and services. The logo was designed by Washington, D.C.-based firm Think Design. Attendees to the April 2010 ETA Annual Meeting & Expo got a preliminary look at the design. The organization chose a new logo to convey the dynamic and evolving nature of the payments industry.
First American Payment Systems LP is offering its non-registered ISOs their own enterprise websites at no cost. The customized sites are pre-formatted and will include company-specific information and a photo. Each site will also include a contact page for the ISO's merchants to use.
Hosted software provider FreedomPay Inc. has surpassed 1,000 clients since its launch in April 2009, according to the company. FreedomPay is a gateway for payment and transaction processing offered as software as a service.
Heartland Payment Systems Inc. said it installed its E3 terminals at 1,020 merchants since launching the end-to-end (E2E) encryption technology May 24, 2010, at the National Restaurant Association meeting. The terminals employ the Advanced Encryption Standard and include EMV/chip card technology for contactless payments on NFC-equipped cell phones.
Additionally, Heartland Payroll Services, a division of Heartland Payment Systems Inc., was named to The Plain Dealer's Top Workplaces 2010 list, which surveys opinions of employees of Cleveland, Ohio, area companies.
Heather Petersen, founder and Chief Executive Officer of National Merchants Association, was featured in the first edition of Crave Los Angeles magazine as one of 125 notable women in Los Angeles. The association is a nationwide electronic payment services provider.
Pemco Technologies, which was acquired in 2009 by Jack Henry & Associates Inc., has been rebranded as JHA Payment Processing Solutions. JHA will operate as a division of Jack Henry.
In other news, Jack Henry was named Independent Software Vendor Solutions Partner of the Year by Microsoft Corp. Jack Henry was chosen for delivering a market-leading customer solution built on Microsoft technology.
Pivotal Payments CEO Philip Fayer was named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 for 2009. The national award is sponsored by The Caldwell Partners International, Deloitte & Touche LLP, National Bank Financial, The Globe and Mail and WestJet Airlines Ltd.
Red Herring named Monitise Americas a winner of its North America 100 award, based primarily on technological innovation. Monitise Americas, a joint venture between Fidelity National Services Inc. and Monitise PLC, provides mobile payment and banking services to financial institutions.
Illinois-based TransNational Bankcard was certified by ValCom Technology as having achieved Level 1 compliance with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). PCI DSS Level 1 compliance is the highest certification given.
PARTNERSHIPSCU Business Group, which serves 300 credit unions, will provide its clients with remote deposit capture (RDC) and payment services from NetDeposit LLC. CUBG is offering its clients NDpro Processing Services, including electronic payment processing applications for ACH and card transactions, as well as commercial RDC.
Utah-based Eliot Management Group's Green Merchant Program will begin making donations to the tree-planting organization Arbor Day Foundation on behalf of new merchants signed. Since the Green Merchant Program's inception in 2009, EMG has donated over $17,000 to organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and the American Red Cross.
Ohio-based Failsafe Payments said it will add Fortumo Ltd.'s mobile payments platform to Failsafe's Certo Payment Gateway. The software will enhance Failsafe's platform features as an e-commerce and e-payments merchant service provider (MSP) for merchants and other MSPs.
Two store chains have signed with Polcard, First Data Corp.'s business in Poland. Polish electronics chain Media Markt signed a long-term contract for processing services. First Data installed 300 card processing terminals at 41 Media Markt stores.
The chain is owned by Metro AG, whose superstore chain Real also uses Polcard services in Poland. Also, First Data said it installed 500 terminals at 120 Netto Sp. z.o.o. stores in Poland, enabling that discount chain to accept card payments for the first time.
Ingenico and Bank Asya will roll out a contactless payment service in Turkey for taxi cabs. During the pilot phase, Ingenico POS terminals with contactless readers will be deployed in 114 taxis in Istanbul.
Six new gaming merchants have signed with Neovia Financial PLC, including German gaming giant bet-at-home.com. Other new clients include 2pay, Buzzluck, Intergame Ltd.'s CAIgames, Littlewoods Game On Ltd., and Play'n GO. The online merchants use Neovia's Neteller e-wallet.
Paysentinel LLC certified its gateway with Elavon Inc. Paysentinel Gateway can now provide its resellers and agents with Elavon services.
Paysentinel said credit card numbers entering the Paysentinel Translation Server are converted into unique transaction numbers, leaving no trace of data to be hacked during transmission to the merchant.
An appliance parts wholesaler teamed with 3Delta Systems Inc. for its CardVault tokenization service to protect payment and cardholder data. The CardVault hosted software service will reportedly enable Electric Sweeper Service Company to qualify for the lowest available Level 3 interchange rates and to more easily comply with the PCI DSS.
OffGamers, a videogame service with 300,000 members worldwide, partnered with GlobalCollect for online credit card services. GlobalCollect is a payment service provider for international customer-not-present channels.
U.S. private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe is acquiring GlobalCollect from General Atlantic LLC.
Two POS system vendors will work with the TransNet payment engine from Precidia Technologies Inc. to integrate the TransNet engine into Documentor Inc.'s Documentor POS System.
TransNet also was certified with Micro$ale POS, a touch screen system designed for food service merchants. Micro$ale POS is a division of KIS Software Inc.
European retailer Reno Fashion & Shoes GmbH selected easycash GmbH, the German affiliate of Ingenico, as its payment services provider. The conversion to easycash will begin with the chain's 500 stores; the conversion of 100 affiliated partners will follow. Reno Fashion previously used easycash's services until 2006.
Financial institution Société Générale teamed with Obopay Inc. to provide mobile payment services in new geographic markets. The first initiative, called Yoban'tel by Obopay, is being launched in Senegal and will be available to anyone there with a mobile phone.
Using PCI-compliance services from Trustwave, Shazam said it enrolled 75 percent of its Level 4 merchant por folio into its PCI DSS-compliance program. Shazam is a member-owned electronic funds transfer network and processor. In other news, Wisconsin-based payment processor Wind River Financial chose Trustwave to provide PCI compliance validation support for its Level 4 merchants.
Vschoolz Inc. chose Fifth Third Processing Solutions LLC as its preferred e-commerce provider for its Complete Digital School System, simplifying the merchant services application process for K through 12 schools. Vschoolz reportedly has been designated the preferred platform by CSK12 Virtual, the national online Catholic School System.
ACQUISITIONSFIS reported it is buying Compliance Coach Inc., a supplier of risk-assessment software. FIS said the deal will close by mid-July. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Compliance Coach's products, including Compliance Risk Indicator and Compliance Pal, are reportedly used by seven of the top 10 banks within the financial services industry.
Additionally, Cards International named FIS's 2009 acquisition of Metavante the best merger or acquisition deal of the year in its Global Awards 2010.
Payment services provider SafeCharge International acquired xt:Commerce GmbH, a developer of e-commerce software reportedly used by 100,000 shops in Europe. SafeCharge's payment gateway services integrate fraud prevention software.
Information security and compliance provider Trustwave acquired Breach Security, a developer of web application firewall technology with more than 10,000 deployments. Trustwave will integrate the firewall appliance into its application security suite to more effectively protect applications against cybercrime than either standalone solution can, according to Trustwave.
APPOINTMENTSTotal Systems Services Inc. made two appointments to its office in Frankfurt, Germany, to oversee relationships with new clients.
Troy Alvarez was named Director of Relationship Management for B+S Card Service. Beate Bader became TSYS Account Manager for Degussa Bank.
Previously, Alvarez was Vice President, Product Management, at TSYS Acquiring Solutions, U.S. And Bader was Account Manager with Germany-based Atos Worldline Processing.
MasterCard Worldwide named Sachin Mehra Corporate Treasurer, succeeding Andrea Robertson, who is retiring. Most recently, Mehra was treasurer at Hess Corp. He worked in the treasury department of General Motors Corp. and has experience working in New York, Singapore, Shanghai and Brussels.
Tap-and-pay service provider Bling Nation hired marketing veteran Matthew Murphy as General Manager of the Pacific region. Murphy was Director of Product Management at Ask.com and Vice President of Marketing for Chegg.com.
First American Payment Systems LP hired Cody Yanchak as Manager of Strategic Partnerships. He will develop core partnerships with ISOs, agents and financial institutions. Yanchak previously led sales teams at Century Payments and Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC.
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