Square as announced new simple pricing for small businesses - a flat $275 monthly fee for merchants who process up to $250,000 per year and for transactions up to $400 in value.

“For 62 years, merchants have suffered complicated, expensive processing fees. Square is the first company to rethink electronic payment pricing with the merchant in mind. We are giving merchants affordable, predictable pricing, ” said Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey. “With one monthly price, merchants know that the sales they’ve processed in a day is the same amount deposited in the bank.”

Doing the math, Square's new flat fee pricing will save fees for merchants who do over $100,000 annually in swipe payment volume as compared to its standard 2.75%/swipe fee. For example, a merchant doing $200,000/year will have an effective discount rate of 1.375%. Manually-entered card transactions are not included in the flat fee - they continue to be priced at 3.5% + 15 cents per transactions.

Mercury Payment Systems and Silver Lake Partners have jointly announced that "Silver Lake will make a strategic growth investment in Mercury and acquire approximately 60% of the Colorado-based business." Mercury founders Marc Katz and Jeffrey Katz, and existing investor Larry Stone, will collectively retain approximately 40% ownership in the company. They also will continue to serve on its board of directors and help guide Mercury's strategy. READ MORE »

Adyen, a Netherlands-headquartered payments processing company started by the founders of Bibit, has announced the expansion of the company to the U.S. marketplace. Adyen executives include Chief Executive Officer, Pieter van der Does; President of North America, Peter Caparso; Chief Commerce Officer, Roelant Prins; and Chief Technology Officer, Arnout Schuijff. READ MORE »

Ingenico has introduced the Ingenico ROAM suite of mobile applications - including ROAMpay and ROAMbuy - to help sales agents, mobile workforce professionals, and merchants reach and service consumers on their own mobile phones. The applications result from a strategic investment Ingenico made recently to work with ROAM Data Inc., a Boston-based mobile application service provider. According to Ingenico, "ROAM's patented technology enables it to be the only provider to dynamically deliver business and payment applications to nearly 200 million US customers, regardless of carrier on hundreds of different devices from smartphones to feature phones running J2ME and Brew." READ MORE »

An international consortium of payment and wireless industry leaders have announced their participation in a field trial being conducted by Banka Koper to bring SIM-based NFC mobile payments to Slovenia. CASSIS International, INSIDE Contactless, Sagem Orga and Sagem Wireless, in cooperation with Mobitel, the leading mobile service provider in Slovenia, have provided Banka Koper with the payment infrastructure and applications for this trial, which will run through June 2010. READ MORE »

DeviceFidelity has announced the availability of In2Pay, a microSD-based solution that "transforms any mobile phone with an available memory card slot into an interactive contactless transaction device. Compatible with near field communication (NFC) technology, In2Pay is now available for trials with banks, wireless carriers and payment networks, with volume production for commercial deployments in 2010. DeviceFidelity has signed evaluation agreements with some of the largest card issuers in the U.S. and will be demonstrating In2Pay at Cartes 2009." READ MORE »

TSYS Acquiring Solutions has announced the introduction of MobilePASS - a payment application that gives merchants the ability to accept and process card payments any time, anywhere.

According to TSYS, "MobilePASS enables merchants to accept and process card payments while on-the-go. A convenient alternative to traditional and expensive payment applications such as wireless terminals, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems and old- fashioned knuckle busters, MobilePASS is designed for the 21st century merchant." READ MORE »

Elavon, a wholly owned subsidiary of US Bancorp, has signed a three-year agreement with FNC Inc., a technology company offering tailored solutions for the real-estate and mortgage industry to streamline industry processes, regulations and compliance. According to Elevavon, "the agreement provides credit and debit processing services via a new dashboard functionality offered by FNC in support of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) – a regulatory requirement impacting the mortgage industry’s appraiser selection process." READ MORE »

On-Line Strategies has announced it has completed certification and production implementation of an Electronic Check Acceptance interface with a major authorizer as part a Fortune 100 client project. According to OLS, "OLS.Switch is a payment transaction processing engine, built using best-of-breed technologies to implement a unique new design supporting the latest industry standards, regulations, and best practices for payments and settlement processing." READ MORE »

Earlier this year, Intuit "soft launched" its new GoPayment mobile card acceptance solution for merchants. Yesterday, Intuit officially announced the new service - "GoPayment helps small businesses improve sales and cash flow by using their mobile phones to accept credit card payments. GoPayment is affordable and hassle-free. All that’s needed is a mobile phone with access to the mobile Web, or the easy-to-download GoPayment application, and an Intuit GoPayment merchant account." READ MORE »

CreditCards.com has announced the launch of its latest site, MerchantAccountGuide.com, saying it offers "a unique and vital service to the small business community in the United States. The website allows small business owners to compare merchant processing services, which facilitate the acceptance of credit cards for customer payments." READ MORE »

Intuit has introduced Intuit GoPayment - saying it "enables business owners to accept credit and signature debit card payments using their mobile phone and a QuickBooks Merchant Services Account." The new service supports an optional Bluetooth mag stripe reader or reader/receipt printer along with Quickbooks integration of the payments processed.

Planet Payment has announced the launch in the United States of Payment BuyVoice, a mobile commerce solution that "provides merchants with a cost effective, secure and convenient way to accept credit cards, from any mobile phone or landline." READ MORE »

First Data posted a press release this afternoon saying that it is now "directly offering a solution to address merchant needs" in Austria. The company sais its 'FirstPOS' offers merchants a comprehensive package for accepting payment cards. READ MORE »

Glenbrook's next roundtable on the Structure of the Merchant Marketplace will be held June 10th in Santa Clara, California. Registration is now open. Allen Weinberg and Carol Coye Benson will be taking a special look "under the covers" – focusing on the key industry verticals within the U.S. merchant marketplace. READ MORE »

Chockstone has announced SingleSwipe, calling it 'a new identification program that allows credit and debit card companies and merchants to tie merchant loyalty programs to a customer's existing credit or debit card.'

This Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area, we'll be hosting a special focus workshop on Card Payment Processing - The Value Chain. If you're interested in some current insights into the merchant card processing side of the business, be sure to take a look at the recent conference call transcripts on quarterly earnings from both Global Payments and Heartland Payment Systems. Thanks to Seeking Alpha for making the transcripts available.

Javien Digital Payment Solutions has intorduced the Javien New Media Payment Gateway, calling it "the first transaction payment gateway tailored specifically to the needs of companies that sell digital assets like music, movies, games and software, whether sold via the Internet, or to mobile phones."

VeriFone Holdings has announced "formation of VeriFone Access to provide merchant hosted services for managing electronic payments, beginning in Mexico. VeriFone Access was formed with VeriFone’s investment and in partnership with Tienda-kit, an innovative Mexican third-party acquirer and merchant services provider, which now operates as VeriFone Access."

The Merchants Payments Coalition has announced that it has "delivered to members of the House Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Task Force a detailed report responding to questions about Visa and MasterCard's hidden credit card interchange fees raised by Representative Ric Keller, R-Fla., at a recent hearing."

"ONE Payment Alliance Corp., a collaborated payment processing service with ChinaPay, ECONTEXT, and INICIS, announced today it has launched an online payment processing service for China, Japan, and Korea market with a single interface, a single merchant service, and a single payment gateway to reach out to online consumers in the three largest economies in Asia. This alliance service is available to begin online payment processing services to many global merchants wishing to conduct online business in China, Japan and Korea immediately."

In an article titled 'Charge It!", Elizabeth Holmes writes for the Wall St. Journal about how small businesses can get the best deal on merchant payment card processing. Holmes writes that "navigating the payment-card processing system can be an overwhelming and costly burden. With fees tacked on by as many as 12 intermediaries, from the equipment provider and the Internet service to the card issuers themselves, payment processing is often the third- or fourth-highest expense for a small business."

Massimo Arrigoni blogs for Practical Commerce about the range of merchant payment options available from PayPal - including the new PayPal Checkout.

Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg is at the annual Electronic Transactions Association's Annual Meeting & Expo being held this week in Las Vegas. Allen filed the following report from the Expo.

First Data International and INICIS Co Ltd have announced a strategic alliance to offer merchant processing services to global, online merchants operating in Korea.

Global Payments has announced the introduction of a Mobile POS Solution using the WAY Systems Mobile Transaction MTT 1556 Credit/Debit terminal. The company says the product "combines the security and performance of a traditional POS terminal with the ease of using a mobile phone."

PayPal has launched an Online Merchant Network site - "a place to get information, advice from seasoned merchants, and resources to help increase your profits." The Online Merchant Network's mission states "The goal of the OMN is to build an objective, open, and welcoming environment for the exchange of ideas about business. Although the OMN is hosted by PayPal, we encourage and welcome any healthy discussion about all payment providers, both pros and cons. And from time to time PayPal, as well as third-party contributors, will provide content about topics concerning online businesses. In essence, we're building the OMN to help businesses grow - and thrive."

The Direct Response Forum's annual conference is being held next week, August 13-15th, in Boston. This year's keynote will be given by Jack Stephenson, head of McKinsey & Company's North American Payments Practice. The full agenda for next weeks's event is available online.

Vindicia's Gene Hoffman tells us that the new Vindicia CashBox payment management service is specifically designed to meet the needs of merchants selling digital content or "software as a service" online. CashBox helps these kinds of merchants both manage their payment processing much more efficiently (especially for handling recurring payments and for handling chargebacks) as well as providing customer lifecycle management services to optimize top line revenue. We expect to hear more from Vindicia about CashBox's payment management capabilities when it's officially launched soon.

A new payments consortium called PASS (Payments As a Secure Service) announced its formation at the Microsoft Developers Conference. The consortium, which is led by IP Commerce, intends to exploit new features in Windows Vista, including the operating system's enhanced security and discovery features.

Currently, small businesses interface with credit card companies and financial services firms in the financial ecosystem through highly proprietary relationships based on one-to-one technology connections. PASS redefines this relationship by enabling Independent Software Vendors, System Integrators and Value-Added Resellers to create service-oriented financial management solutions in software applications fulfilled by best-in-class providers through a single service provisioning system.