The Conference Board Leading Economic Index for the U.S. increased 0.3% in August to 116.2 after a a 0.6% increase in July and a 0.3% increase in June. In conjunction, core credit card interest rates remained consistent throughout 2011 after hovering around as high as 16% before dropping to a rock bottom 12.64% back in…
Many businesses will face substantial rate hikes instead of rate reductions under a new law set to go into effect soon, according to merchant rights advocate Robert Livingstone, president and founder of IdealCost.com, a consulting firm that reduces credit card acceptance fees for merchants without switching their existing provider. The Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Act is supposed to substantially reduce card acceptance fees for merchants across America, according to IdealCost.com. Visa and MasterCard have already announced historically high credit card processing rate increases to begin in October. Credit card processors acting as brokers between Visa/MasterCard and businesses will receive the rate reduction, many of which intend to pocket the difference.
Visa announced Google received a worldwide license to Visa “payWave” NFC-based payment technology, allowing users to conduct payments by waving their mobile phone in front of a payment terminal. This is the latest effort by Visa and Google to simplify the consumer shopping experience by enabling them to make mobile payments using their mobile phones. This includes Visa’s own digital wallet announced earlier this year which is designed to provide consumers with “click-to-buy” payment functionality and access to their Visa and non-Visa accounts using a personal computer or smart phone, to make purchases online and at retail locations.
NCR Corporation launched its “CPMobile” mobile retail management solution. Allowing specialty retailers to engage more directly with consumers throughout the sales process and provide a level of customer service that will drive revenue and differentiate them from their competition, the scalable “CPMobile” offers full integration with the Radiant CounterPoint retail POS system and is designed to help retailers sell anywhere and achieve a high value and return on investment. It operates on any standard fourth generation iPod Touch or iPhone 4 using a 3G or Wifi connection.
MoneyGram International has joined the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) industry-owned co-operative that supplies secure messaging services and interface software to financial institutions. MoneyGram is the first global money transfer company to receive worker’s remittance member status. This alliance will increase the efficiency and reduce the start up costs of adding new members to MoneyGram’s global agent network. It also will provide SWIFT member institutions the ability to offer their customers access to MoneyGram’s global network for a convenient, fast and secure way to send money to their bank accounts.
Ken Paull has been appointed executive VP with ROAM Data independent mCommerce solutions. Paull brings with him an extensive electronic payments industry experience and will be responsible for all sales, marketing and business development functions at ROAM. His previous roles included senior vice president at RBS Lynk (now WorldPay), vice president at Triton Systems and general manager at VeriFone. During his tenure at these three companies, Lynk was sold to RBS ($525M), Triton was sold to Dover Corp. and VeriFone was sold to Hewlett Packard ($1.2B). He is growing what is now WorldPay’s national accounts division while also growing what had been a declining ATM processing business by 500%. At VeriFone, Ken built their direct, major account division which has become one of the largest segments of their business.
MasterCard Worldwide and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announced Starwood will participate in the MasterCard enhanced folio data program. Starwood will add nine new hotel brands and more than 1,000 properties worldwide to the program, expanding the number of business traveler-preferred hotel choices available from which corporate travel departments can receive line item expense data from employee corporate payment card purchases. The MasterCard hotel folio data program delivers travel expenses made on a card in line-item detail, electronically and on monthly invoices, to offer travel managers ease and efficiency in travel policy monitoring.
ScanSource POS & Barcoding sales unit held its annual Partner Conference, during which its reseller and vendor partners discussed with its employees opportunities for growth, hear from industry experts and network. ScanSource also brought in two keynote speakers to address the power of “having a passionate purpose in your business” and the benefits of working together for the greater good. ScanSource has made the presentations from the Partner Conference available to the public, including certain fiscal year 2011 information for the POS & Barcoding sales unit in North America.
Merchant Link payment gateway and data security solutions and its “TransactionVault” tokenization solution now fully integrates with spa and activity management software SpaSoft. Providing an extra layer of payment security and helping meet PCI compliance requirements for spas and resorts, SpaSoft is a management and scheduling software solution for spas and resorts that now integrates with Merchant Link’s next-generation tokenization solution, which removes customer credit card data where it would be at risk from hackers. The combined solution helps reduce resorts, spas and health clubs PCI DSS scope.
Green Dot prepaid financial services joined the PCI Security Standards Council to contribute to the improvement of payment data security worldwide through the ongoing development of the PCI Security Standards. As a Participating Organization, Green Dot will play an active role in the standards setting process. The Council relies on involvement of those across the payments processing such as Green Dot to enhance payment data security globally while embracing new technologies as they are developed.
Epicor Software has been named the leading vendor of POS software to top specialty soft goods retailers and hard goods retailers by global research and advisory firm IHL Group. With this, it ranks first place in POS Software for Softgoods Retailers and POS Software for Hardgoods Retailers, the sixth consecutive year Epicor has taken first place in the IHL POS Software for Softgoods Retailers report. Epicor software solutions are designed to meet the evolving merchandise and service expectations of today’s cross-channel shoppers and the business requirements of the most demanding retail environments.
Acclaim Telecom Services has completed a comprehensive audit and certification of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) for Service Providers and is now Level 2 PCI DSS compliant. This certification is part of ongoing security measure upgrades and enhancements necessary to securely manage the storage, processing and transmitting of credit card information by Acclaim Telecom Services’ hosted solutions and cloud computing offerings.