Ryan Naraine reports on trends to watch in 2004 from the editors of InternetNews.com and JupiterMedia -- including micropayments.

InformationWeek reports on the planning that went into preparing Visa's VisaNet systems for handling peak holiday season volumes.

The company, which Monday reported a sharp increase in holiday-related shopping transactions, spent much of the year preparing its mainframe to handle a peak rate of 5,200 VisaNet transaction messages per second. Visa said Tuesday that the system reached its peak on Christmas Eve at 5,119 transaction messages a second.

The Economist reports on what's ahead for new Citigroup CEO Charles Prince.

The American Banker reported yesterday (subscription required) that Concord EFS' Star network is raising interchange fees on PIN debit card transactions effective February 1st.

With the recent settlement of the anti-trust lawsuit against First Data and Concord EFS, Star will be competing in the marketplace with rival network NYCE, among others, for bank issuance of PIN debit cards. Increased interchange is one mechanism to motivate bank issuers to either stay with or join Star. Of course, it's the card accepting merchants that pay the price as the interchange increases come out of their bottom line.

Sun Microsystems CTO Greg Papadopoulos forecasts growth in micropayments on the Internet.

Micropayments could also hasten the arrival of Web services that interact with one another -- say, a calendar, map and traffic-monitoring service working together to automatically guide you to your next appointment via the shortest or least congested route -- with each collecting a small per-use fee.

Micropayments, along with marked improvements in network-identity management (a federated system that could make single sign-on a reality in 2004), mean that IT managers need to be thinking about new kinds of services their companies will be able to profit from, using all the latest advances.

Visa USA has reported on the growth in US spending on Visa credit and debit cards over this holiday season.

Visa spending in the retail segment(1) topped $43.2 billion during the four weeks preceding December 28, a 10.3 percent increase over the same period of 2002. Visa debit cards (which include check cards and prepaid cards) showed the strongest year over year increase, growing 16.7 percent to $16.1 billion. None-the-less, the bulk of Visa spending on retail this holiday season was charged to credit cards for a total of $27.1 billion.

The first day of the traditional holiday season, Black Friday (November 28), was Visa's biggest retail day, with nearly $2 billion spent at retailers. However, December 20 sales came in a close second, accounting for over $1.9 billion in retail spending.

This holiday season, the highest grossing retail sectors for Visa cards have been Department Stores, Apparel, and Mail and Phone Order sales, for a total of over $10 billion from November 28 to December 28. Spending in the Specialty Retail and Hobby category grew the most among retail sectors, with dollar volume increasing 13.5 percent from 2002.

Bob Tedeschi reports in today's New York Times about the success online retailers have had this holiday season.

As of Dec. 26, year-to-date sales - excluding travel and auctions - reached $51.51 billion, up roughly 22 percent from $42.37 billion in the same period a year earlier. Those numbers could change slightly, ComScore said, as holiday returns are settled. And unlike most merchants, ComScore records revenues from gift certificates when the certificates are bought, not when they are redeemed.

Visa USA reported similarly positive results last week. Visa, which says its credit and debit cards are used in about half of all Internet transactions, said nontravel online retail sales from Nov. 17 to Dec. 25 increased 45 percent over the same period last year, to $4.9 billion. As of Dec. 25, year-to-date sales had jumped 37 percent, to $28.4 billion.

Gregg Keizer reports on InternetWeek.com on the growth in phishing attacks -- rogue emails sent out that attempt to get consumers to provide account details and passwords by impersonating financial institutions.

In the past two weeks alone, an estimated 60 million phishing e-mails have been sent to users, said Tumbleweed Communications, an anti-spam and secure messaging vendor that compiled the numbers from Anti-Phishing.org. Because the phishing messages often look remarkably official, down to logos and professionally designed forms for entering credit card information, an average of 5 percent of those who receive them respond.

Actually, we've heard anecdotally of even higher response rates to these unfortunate emails. Founded by Tumbleweed, the industry has recently established the Anti-Phishing Working Group to help deal with the threats from phishing attacks.

Sunday's New York Times has an article by John Kimelman on how Internet banks are providing better rates on accounts to consumers.

Traditionally, banks in small communities have often offered some of the highest rates on money market deposits and C.D.'s, to try to keep up with loan demand. But the emergence of the Internet has led to the rise of branchless banks, which benefit from low overhead to offer better rates on deposits, also backed by the F.D.I.C.

Indeed, the three banks that now advertise the best rates are not found on neighborhood streets, according to Bankrate.com. They are the Bank of Internet USA, Virtual Bank and National InterBank.

Amber Chung reports in the Taipei Times on smartcard adoption in Taiwan.

Taiwan is the most active country in promoting integrated chip (IC) cards in the Asia-Pacific region, said a report by MasterCard International released yesterday. The nation's business operators more clearly comprehend the advantages of IC cards than those in any other Asia Pacific country, it said.

The survey, conducted by MasterCard International in eight Asia-Pacific countries, said Tai-wan, Japan and Malaysia's merchants have the most abundant knowledge of IC card technology, while those in Hong Kong and Singapore are comparatively ignorant in this regard.

Analisa Nazareno reports in the San Antonio Express-News on micropayments discussions at the recent Future of Money Summit.

Reuters reports on the serious credit card crisis facing Korea.

The crisis engulfing South Korea's debt-laden credit card sector worsened on Monday when the largest issuer, LG Card, was granted an extra $250 million in emergency loans and its third-biggest issuer, KEB Credit, suspended cash advances.

Alorie Gilbert reports in Silicon.com on 'wave and go' credit card payments.

The goal of the Us-wide launch is to build a critical mass of both PayPass cardholders and retailers, said MasterCard vice president Murdo Munro. But if the Orlando trial is any indication, MasterCard faces a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma: consumers are unlikely to take an interest in PayPass unless enough retailers support the system, and retailers are reluctant to invest in PayPass equipment until enough customers use the cards.

Several McDonald's store managers that participated in the Orlando trial expressed disappointment in the technology because so few customers had used it. Chung Tran, a manager of one Orlando McDonald's, said he'd seen PayPass used only about three times during the past year. "People are always asking what the heck it is," Tran said of the PayPass reader.

Forbes reports that the law firm that represented retailers in the anti-trust lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard will receive $220 million in fees and an additional expense reimbursement of $18.7 million.

Lloyd Constantine, lead lawyer for the retailers, had requested roughly $600 million in fees, saying the sum was 18 percent of the settlement plus expenses. But Gleeson in his approval said the requested fee was "excessive."

George Smith Alexander reports on mobile commerce in India.

"The customers will be able to use their mobile and pay through their debit card/credit card the way they use Internet banking. The customer will be able to authenticate the transaction and he can make bill payments, mobile top-ups and also on-line purchases," says Visa International's regional head consumer and commercial marketing (Asia -Pacific region) Rahul Khosla.

First Data Corp. has announced that it is acquiring CashCard Australia.

"Today's announcement is exciting as we believe this transaction will offer a significant range of benefits to our many clients," commented Greg Nash, managing director of First Data International Australia, New Zealand and South Asia operations.

"We believe the combined EFT switching and processing lines of business will provide the scale necessary to ensure the merged enterprise will remain cost effective, technology efficient and people-smart in this rapidly changing marketplace, leading to the development of even more competitive products and services."

Founded in 1983 by Australian Building Societies to build and operate a shared ATM network, Cashcard now provides a range of services to other major financial institutions and retailers, as well as operating a large Merchant ATM acquiring network.

Bob Tedeschi reports in today's New York Times on the new categories of 'stores' on Amazon.com.

iPayment has announced that it has completed the acquisition of a portfolio of agent bank agreements and merchant accounts from First Data Corp.'s Merchant Services subsidiary for $55 million in cash.   » Continue Reading

Some retailers are pointing to revenue recognition of increased gift card sales as one reason this holiday season's same store sales results may be lighter than expected.

Sales of gift cards now represent about 8% to 10% of holiday retail spending, analysts estimate. But such spending can skew retailers' holiday results. Although consumers often purchase gift cards in December, retailers don't recognize revenue from such cards until they are redeemed, which often occurs weeks or months after Christmas.

"Gift cards really don't affect total sales," said Craig Johnson, president of retail consulting firm Customer Growth Strategies. "But they dramatically affect [same-store] sales," which seem unlikely to produce the kind of gains many investors were betting on this holiday season.

Doc Searls shares his online experience with Reservation Rewards -- they stepped in following his online purchase at a Yahoo! Store. He was curious why a survey following his purchase was also asking for his credit card information -- and proceeded to read (and capture) the fine print.

I wonder if Amazon and other relatively reputable outfits support this kind of scammy stuff. Be interesting to know. This certainly makes me think less of both Yahoo and the store I bought the goods from, since it isn't clear to me where one ends and the other begins.

Bern, Switzerland-based Sicap has released the results of a survey of 514 retail professionals conducted by Indro Celia, professor of e-business, at the University of Applied Sciences of Central Switzerland regarding their attitudes towards mobile commerce.

52 percent of those interviewed were positive about the prospects for mobile commerce with 50 percent attracted to its revenue generating potential. Window-shopping was identified as the "killer" application that would drive mobile commerce growth. By enabling consumers to purchase store items displayed in shop windows consumers would be able to make purchases outside store opening hours as well as avoid queuing at checkouts. In contrast, retailers questioned the added value to consumers of other often quoted mobile commerce scenarios like paying at the point of sale (POS) in a store and toping-up prepaid accounts.

Who'd have ever guessed that window shopping might be the mobile commerce "killer app"?

VeriSign announced some data on holiday shopping volumes being processed by VeriSign Payment Services:

Since Thanksgiving through December 16, 2003, VeriSign Payment Services has processed more than 23.6 million Internet merchant payment transactions totaling approximately $3.54 billion in online sales volume. During the same period last year, VeriSign processed 16.9 million transactions totaling approximately $2.89 billion in online sales volume.

The average size of a single consumer transaction during this year's holiday season is also up by more than 16 percent at $142 per transaction, versus approximately $122 per transaction last year. In addition, total sales volumes for all VeriSign payments merchants combined increased by more than 22 percent over the same holiday shopping period during 2002.

So far, the single busiest online holiday shopping day of the year for VeriSign payment merchants was the Monday following Thanksgiving, when VeriSign processed 1.68 million of their online transactions.

In a pretty comprehensive look at the subject, Catherine Donaldson-Evans reports on Fox News on the growth in gift cards this holiday season. Starbucks, in particular, has had great success:

Since the company launched its gift card in 2001, there have been more than 100 million redemption transactions that have resulted in net sales of more than $400 million, according to spokeswoman Kristine Jimenez-Ortiz.

Jimenez-Ortiz said the Starbucks gift card business has seen a 30 percent increase from year to year; for fiscal year 2003, 10 percent of all company transactions were paid for with a gift card.

The article goes on to note that much of Starbuck's success is related to customers being able to reload the cards.

First Data has announced a new processing center to serve clients in Central and Latin America from Panama City, Panama.

"This new company solidifies First Data's commitment to meeting the processing needs of financial institutions across Latin America and the Caribbean," said Pam Patsley, president, First Data International. "The combined strength of First Data and Banco General will enable PROCESA to deliver a state-of-the-art operation that meets the unique needs of its customers and enable its customers to aggressively grow their business and respond quickly to changing market dynamics. This company will build upon First Data's core strength of delivering a trusted third party processing solution."

From Australia, Paul Stewart-Day is running a new website focused on providing advice regarding international money transfer services for consumers.

Checkfree announced this morning that it is acquiring walk-in bill payment provider American Payment Systems.

Based in Wallingford, Connecticut, APS provides walk-in bill payment services through an extensive national network of more than 8,000 retail and agent locations, which reaches 70 percent of consumers in the top 75 U.S. metropolitan areas. Today, APS enables 7 million households to pay for services in-person. The company serves hundreds of billers with contracted payment services and manages a growing network of non-contracted billers for electronic transaction processing. For 2003, APS expects to process nearly 120 million payments.

The American Bankers Association and Dove Consulting have released the results of a new nationwide consumer payments study that concluded that, for the first time, electronic payments have surpassed cash and checks as consumers' preferred payment method for in-store purchases.

The 2003/2004 Study of Consumer Payment Preferences found that cash and checks now account for 47 percent of consumers' in-store purchases, as compared to 57 percent in 1999 and 51 percent in 2001.  This evolution of payment behavior continues to be driven by the increasing popularity of debit cards.  Four years ago, debit represented only 21 percent of in-store transactions; today consumers report that nearly one out of three (31 percent) in-store purchases are made with a debit card. 

This growth in debit card use has come at the expense of both cash and checks.  While cash remains the single most frequently used payment method in stores, its share of the transaction mix has fallen from 39 percent in 1999 to 32 percent in 2003.  Checks also play a diminishing role at the point-of-sale, accounting for just 15 percent of purchases. Comparatively, consumer use of credit cards for in-store purchases has remained relatively constant at 21 percent.  At 2 percent, the "other" payments category is made up of prepaid cards.

Jon Udell, writing in his InfoWorld weblog about how an authenticated world would be better than today's, is worried less about card reader deployment to read cards.

It's unclear how the governments and banks and airlines and other entities who currently issue cards will evolve the identity infrastructures this solution implies, how those infrastructures will cooperate, and how revocation can be managed in a scalable way.

That said, I worry less nowadays about card-reader deployment. Maybe because I figure that we'll just authenticate to our phones, and let them talk Bluetooth to PCs and other devices.

Jennifer Inez Ward reports in this morning's Oakland Tribune on the rapid growth in popularity of gift cards.

Leaving paper gift certificates in the dust, electronic gift cards are taking off this holiday season as the plastic present becomes more and more the norm. According to a survey by the National Retail Federation, consumers plan to spend $17.8 billion on gift cards this holiday, which accounts for nearly 8 percent of all holiday sales. The survey found that 69.9 percent of consumers plan to buy gift cards during the holidays as well.

MasterCard and eFunds have announced they are forming a new debit processing alliance.

 "MasterCard Complete Debit Processing is built on eFunds' industry-leading processing system and software platform used by most of the major payment networks in the United States, supporting more than 80 percent of the nation's debit transactions," added Paul Walsh, CEO, eFunds Corporation. "We are excited to partner with MasterCard to provide financial institutions with scalable technology and professional resources necessary to profit from every step in the debit transaction processing chain."

The press release indicates that MasterCard will have responsibility for marketing and sales of alliance services.

TowerGroup commented today on the growing vulnerability of automated teller machines to viruses in a new report just published.

"Drawn by the allure of low-cost software development and enterprise-wide connectivity, financial institutions are using technologies so ubiquitous that institutions are at risk of being contaminated by a global community they can't control," said Jerry Silva, a senior analyst in the Delivery Channels practice at TowerGroup and author of the research.

"Financial institutions must face these new vulnerabilities and start dealing with the reality of a 'dirty' global network."

Strong -- but very appropriate -- words of advice!

The US Department of Justice has posted the proposed Final Judgment for the settlement of the First Data/Concord EFS anti-trust lawsuit. Basically, the judgment specifies the mechanics associated with FDC disposing of NYCE and prevents any reacquisition of any interest in NYCE for a ten year period.

Using FeliCa technology from Sony, NTT DoCoMo is launching a trial of a couple thousand handsets equipped for making mobile payments.

Yahoo! PayDirect this morning announced a new, international, online person-to-person payments service.

After the sender makes the initial remittance, the recipient receives a Yahoo! PayDirect World Card, which is delivered within five days. The PayDirect World Card is a stored-value card that can be used to withdraw local currency at any of the more than 800,000 Cirrus ATMs around the world, just like a traditional ATM card. The recipient doesn't have to have a bank account to receive or use the card. The recipient can, at any time, withdraw the entire balance up to local ATM limits, or make periodic withdrawals until the remittance is exhausted. The sender can re-fill the same card, up to the specified limit, at the Yahoo! PayDirect Web site from their bank account.

In lieu of the PayDirect World Card, recipients can also collect funds within minutes at any of the 60,000+ MoneyGram(R) international money transfer locations worldwide. In addition to saving time and money, senders also receive a free five-minute international virtual calling card to contact their receiver by phone after the money is sent.

With the anti-trust trial scheduled to start today, First Data and Concord EFS announced early this morning that they had reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice, eight states and the District of Columbia that will allow the two companies to complete their proposed merger by the end of the first quarter 2004.

The proposed agreement with the DOJ calls for First Data to divest its 64 percent ownership of the NYCE Corporation, an electronic funds transfer network. In addition, First Data has agreed to hold NYCE as a separate unit pending the divestiture.

Slashdot tonight has a thread discussing RFID-based proximity payments triggered by this AP story posted on CNN.

Eugene Wee writes in the Sunday Straits Times from Singapore about micropayments.

Today, the micropayment model is making a comeback, with big guns like Apple leading the charge. While its iTunes Music Store, which sells digital music for 99 US cents (S$1.70) a song, uses credit card transactions and does not really leverage on new micropayment technology per se, it has shown that people are willing to buy low-cost digital content.

CBS News reports on trials of proximity (RFID-based) payment cards.

TSYS announced today that it has appointed Kelley Knutson as managing director of TSYS Europe.

An 18-year veteran of the payments industry, Knutson has held various leadership positions with GE Capital and Visa International, and most recently served as chief executive officer of Clear Money Ltd., the leading aggregator of electronic bill presentment and payment services in the UK.

Vin Crosbie summarizes the steps to migrating from a free website to one that charges for content based upon the experiences of Donn Friedman, assistant managing editor for production technology and new media innovations at the Albuquerque Journal.

Dow Jones reports that the US Department of Justice plans to call several major retailers and financial institutions as witnesses in the anti-trust lawsuit scheduled to begin on Monday.

The government's tentative witness list of 13 has seven retailers, including representatives from K-Mart, Rite Aid, and Safeway, as well as Target Corp.'s Target Financial Services. Also testifying are witnesses from Fifth Third Bancorp, Citibank and American Express. ...

First Data's witnesses include representatives from Supervalu and ConocoPhillips.

The DOJ's complete witness list is available online.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has posted an advisory letter to banks regarding Risk Management of Wireless Networks (Microsoft Word version).

Wireless network solutions provide national banks with an alternative for systems development that requires effective board and management oversight. Effective wireless network management includes maintaining adequate security, ensuring appropriate project management, and achieving performance goals. The OCC requires the board and management to update the bank's security program before implementing wireless networks and monitor the security program to ensure that effective risk management practices are in place.

This morning's Wall St. Journal "Heard on the Street" column reports on the pending merger of FDC and Concord EFS.

Two months ago, the Justice Department cited antitrust concerns and sued to block the consumer-finance middleman from completing the $7 billion pact, one of the biggest proposed merger deals of the year. But as the two sides prepare for a Monday court date, pressure is building on both government trustbusters and First Data to reach a deal to let the merger go through, according to a number of analysts, investors and industry executives.

The US Department of Justice's filings in the case to date are available online.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is finally getting serious about policing the security practices of online merchants:

The Petco case is at least the fourth instance in which the FTC has pursued enforcement actions against companies whose security and privacy practices fall short of assurances made to consumers. "Consumers have every right to expect that a business that says it's keeping personal information secure is doing exactly that," said Howard Beales, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "It's not just good business, it's the law."

Atmel and On Track Innovations (OTI) announced that their microcontroller solution has been selected by MasterCard for use in its PayPass deployments in the US.

Atmel has been selected to supply the secure contactless microcontroller and has partnered with OTI to provide the contactless solution expertise including the operating system, application support and inlay technology.

The contactless chip used is an 8-bit secure microcontroller from Atmel's AT05SC highly secure product family, currently used for a variety of banking applications. The chip features 40KB ROM, 2KB EEPROM, hardware DES and hosts Atmel's high security mechanisms. The contactless chip is compliant with ISO-14443B and ISO-7816 industry standards. Atmel and OTI provide the small, robust chip in both a contactless module form and in an inlay form, providing easy card embedding for card suppliers.

The Business Standard reports from Mumbai on the rapid growth in spending on plastic cards in India.

Payment processor TSYS has announced the appointment of Phil Tomlinson as CEO and Troy Woods as President and COO. Former CEO Richard Ussery will remain chairman.

BitPass this morning announced the general availability of its micropayment system.   » Continue Reading

Avon and BankOne announced this morning a new Visa Platinum card that rewards cardholders in points redeemable for Avon beauty products.

"By partnering with Avon, one of America's leading brands, we are providing a card product that is unprecedented in the beauty and direct-selling industries. Avon Representatives will be able to present this offer using a more personalized approach, instead of relying on a more traditional channel," said Tom Kerwin, executive vice president of relationship management for Bank One's card services division.

In a press release this afternoon, PayPal announced new pricing for high-volume digital music companies.

An extension of PayPal's existing payment service for online merchants, PayPal's new micro-payment fees are designed to give the digital music industry a more cost-effective payment solution for downloadable music.

The new fees will allow these merchants to process payments at a rate of 2.5% plus $0.09 for each transaction. The reduced fixed fee represents a 30-50% savings compared to the industry's current payment processing rates of approximately 2% plus $0.20-$0.30, which encompasses interchange, processor and gateway fees.

Wells Fargo this morning announced a new Global Payment Gateway service for Internet merchants.

Previously, time strapped businesses had to handle multiple vendors, systems and technologies to manage online payments and incurred losses from fraud and lengthy chargeback and dispute resolution processes. Managing these disparate resources and technologies took business managers' focus and energy away from their primary goal of growing their business. In addition, it created reporting hassles and an inability to efficiently track transactions. To address this problem, Wells Fargo Global Payment Gateway provides merchants with an integrated transaction, reporting and management system.

In an 8-K SEC filing today, First Data announced that it expects 2003 revenue growth to be closer to 12% vs. the 14% expectation it had announced in October.

An article on First Monday by Kylie J. Veale looks at gift economies on the Internet.

Keynote reports that, according to its Keynote E-Commerce Transaction Performance Index, major online shopping sites took a severe performance beating the day after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, and the traditional kick-off for the holiday shopping season.

“On the Friday after Thanksgiving several retail sites remained below 80% for the majority of the shopping hours. In effect, one out of five online visitors could not complete their transaction on the desired site. Performance stabilized on Saturday and Sunday as sites overcame the rush of Friday,” said Roopak Patel, senior analyst in Keynote’s Public Services group.

“On Monday, as people headed back to work, the response times skyrocketed to as high as 65 seconds for particular sites (average response time is typically between 14 and 17 seconds) and success rates plunged for several sites to well below 80%.”

The BBC reports on delays in the rollout of chip and PIN in the UK.

The chip and pin system has been hailed as a major step forward in the fight against the £400m lost each year to card fraud. But some banks have not yet issued a single new chip card. And only one national retailer has the right equipment to read the cards in place in all of its stores.

The Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs), the industry body responsible for the change over, said it cannot confirm progress so far. But it said it was confident that most Britons would be using chip and pin by the end of 2004.

Comerica has launched a Visa Gift card -- but is only making it available for purchase ($5.95 service fee) by Comerica customers using a Comerica credit or debit card.   » Continue Reading

Wendy's has announced that over 3,000 of its restaurant locations -- including all company-owned stores -- are now accepting credit cards.

"We're receiving very positive feedback from our customers," said Tom Mueller, Wendy's president and chief operating officer. "They like the convenience of paying with a credit card and they appreciate the fact that the systems we've put in place ensure rapid service, both inside our restaurants and at Pick-Up Window."

Checkfree announced yesterday that its agreement with Bank of America has been amended. Among the changes disclosed were adjustments to long-term service pricing to take advantage of economies of scale and Bank of America relinquishing its rights to five million of the original 10 million warrants in the original agreement.

The latest Cambridge Consumer Credit Index survey indicates that American consumers intend to use less credit this holiday season.

"The results of the Cambridge Consumer Credit Index show that more consumers plan to use less credit for Christmas shopping, implying that more will be making purchases using savings and cash. Consumers already burdened with credit card debt also have high hopes of paying off their balances in full when the bills arrive in January. However, Cambridge's experience with the Reality Gap shows that consumers usually underestimate their willingness to take on debt and overestimate their ability to repay it quickly," said Jordan Goodman, spokesperson/financial analyst for the Cambridge Consumer Credit Index.

Craig Karmin reported in today's Wall St. Journal on the Chinese government's emphasis on card payment systems.

Success also could depend on prodding Chinese banks to issue cards. So far, they have been slow to embrace credit, but looming competition may provide the spark. Beginning in 2007, foreign banks will be allowed to offer cards in which bills are calculated in the Chinese currency. Already, Citigroup Inc. has taken a 5% stake in China's Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and, subject to regulatory approval, can increase its stake to 24.9%.

The Business Standard reports that Visa International introduced the first indigenously developed low-cost point-of-sale (POS) terminal in India. The terminals has been developed by Hyderabad-based Linkwell Telesystems with technical support from Visa.   » Continue Reading