Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Russ Jones blogs about "Who Knows What In Payments?" and the explores whether or not the targeting of ads and offers can be enhanced with insight from payment transaction data. He also looks at what mobile wallets will know about the consumer's purchase behavior.

Over on Payments View, our sister publication, Glenbrook's Russ Jones blogs about his hands-on experience using PayPal Empty Hands at the POS.

I went by the San Carlos Home Depot on the way to the Glenbrook office this morning and used PayPal’s “Empty Hands” to pay for my purchase. The whole thing worked and I left the store with a Home Depot receipt that listed my payment method as “PayPal” instead of “Visa XXXXXXXXXXXX9297″.

Over on our sister blog, Payments Views, Glenbrook's Russ Jones shares his thoughts on PayPal's vision for taking its momentum in online payments to the point of sale in the offline world –– PayPal Thinks Big Offline: Exploring PayPal’s Seamless Shopping Vision.

It is interesting that PayPal is focused on optimizing the shopping experience, and not just the payment experience. As many people have pointed out, it’s not only how long it takes to swipe your payment card at BestBuy –– it’s how long you have to wait in line for that privilege.

On the web:

• Save On Gas With Text Payments at POS and Smartphone App - Point of Sale News
• Seeing What Dimly Lies in the Distance: Parting Thoughts on Addressing Payments System Risk - Portals and Rails

On the wires:

• Paytoo Announces a Multi-currency Mobile Payment Platform
• BlueVia Launches a Global Payment API with Partner BOKU
• Jumio Payment Goes WordPress - A Credit Card Reader for Every Blog
• GETI and Alliance Payment Systems Announce Partnership for Point of Sale Check Processing
• ROAM Data Secure Swipers Distributed with Intuit GoPayment in Verizon Retail Stores
• Fulton Financial Corporation Selects Fiserv
• VeriFone Ships 500,000th System to Swedish Partner Point Transaction Systems

On the web:

• A Woman, A Cupcake, A Bank And A Square: Why Card Companies Are Scared Of Change - TechCrunch
• Apple's iPad Already Replacing Cash Registers by the Bushel - AllThingsD

On the wires:

• Bill.com Launches Printed Invoice Mailing Service, Adds QR Codes
• WePay Enhances Easy-To-Use API for Developers and Merchants

Internet Retailer is reporting the results from its first online merchant survey on potential debit card steering practices. Bottom line: one in six online merchants plan to take steps to encourage debit card usage.

39.6% of respondents said they didn’t know debit card fees were going down; a further 43.2% said they have no plans to encourage more debit card spending on their retail sites, while 17.1% will take steps to lower their costs by encouraging debit card payments.

Glenbrook's Russ Jones blogged about POS Steering in the Age of Durbin earlier this year.

On the web:

• Digital Money Facing a Challenging Road - Rethink Wireless
• The Disintermediation of the Point of Sale Industry - Point of Sale News
• A New Payment Instrument for Britain: The Deposit Cheque - Consult Hyperion Blog
• Square No Longer Requires Signatures For Transactions Under $25 - TechCrunch
• VeriFone CEO Bergeron May Deploy $1 Billion Annually for Acquisitions - Bloomberg
• Is Recent EMV Announcement the Catalyst the U.S. Needs to Catch Up? - Portals and Rails
• Google Adds Carrier Billing (via Vodafone) to Android Market in UK - thinq_
• Debit Overdraft Fees, While Voluntary, Are Still Steep - New York Times
• Debit Card Fees Could Signal Trend - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

On the wires:

• Western Union Now Available in Namibia in Collaboration with Magnet Bureau De Change
• Cloud Billing Software Provider MetraTech Collaborates with Scribe for Online Billing Integration
• Failsafe Payments Adds TrustPay To CertoConnect

Visa has announced plans to accelerate the migration to EMV contact and contactless chip technology in the United States. "The adoption of dual-interface chip technology will help prepare the U.S. payment infrastructure for the arrival of NFC-based mobile payments by building the necessary infrastructure to accept and process chip transactions that support either a signature or PIN at the point of sale."

"By encouraging investments in EMV contact and contactless chip technology, we will speed up the adoption of mobile payments as well as improve international interoperability and security," said Jim McCarthy, global head of product, Visa Inc. "As NFC mobile payments and other chip-based emerging technologies are poised to take off in the coming years, we are taking steps today to create a commercial framework that will support growth opportunities and create value for all participants in the payment chain."

NCR and Radiant Systems have announced a definitive agreement for NCR to acquire Radiant Systems for $1.2 billion.

With the addition of Radiant Systems, NCR will create a third core industry vertical, after its Financial and Retail lines of business, and establish category leadership in the hospitality and specialty retail markets. The hospitality and specialty retail total addressable markets are approximately $8 billion in size and under-penetrated by industry leaders.(1) NCR plans to leverage Radiant Systems’ leadership position in quick service and table service restaurants, specialty and convenience retailers and entertainment venues by combining Radiant Systems’ solution and services portfolio with NCR’s existing portfolio, brand and global reach.

On the wires:

• InComm and Unik Become Partners in Brazil
• NCR Lets You Talk to a Teller Through the ATM
• Tabbedout Certified on Dinerware POS System
• Telemundo, mun2 and Western Union to Offer Co-Branded MasterCard Prepaid Cards
• Square and SCORE Team Up to Provide Free Resources for Small Businesses
• Aramor to Offer Secure Vault Payments (SVP) to Merchant Clientele

On the web:

• New York Times: Picking the Right Credit Card for Travel Perks
• AuctionBytes: ShopSavvy Exec Discusses Mobile Commerce, Product Feeds, and Digital Wallet (Video Interview)
• GigaOM: Why Winning Over Merchants Will be Key To Mobile Payments

Over on Payments Views, our sister blog, Glenbrook's Russ Jones shares his thoughts on where POS steering may be headed this year, commenting "several of Glenbrook’s merchant clients are already developing their strategies for rewarding customers that select low cost payment methods at the point of sale."

Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners:

• SOFTBANK MOBILE in Japan Selects Gemalto for Mobile Contactless Payment Trial
• ThreatMetrix Achieves Record Revenue, Billings, Transactions, and Customer Growth in 2010
• Main Street Softworks Inc. Adds Credit Card Enhanced Data (Level III) Reporting Features
• ValidSoft Technology Targets Belgian Bank Card Fraud Crisis
• ProPay Partners with 3DCart to Provide Merchants a Complete Set of eCommerce Tools
• Mitek Seeing Strong Deployment of its Mobile Remote Deposit Capture Application
• BPC Banking Technologies and Banca Transilvania Introduce Western Union Transfers through ATM´S

• New York Times: Now at Starbucks: Buy a Latte By Waving Your Phone
• Portals and Rails: Retail Payments Risk Forum Hosts 4th Annual "Emerging Risks in Emerging Payments" Conference
• eMarketer: In-App Purchases Become Major Mobile Revenue Stream
• Cult of Mac: iPad Cash Register Arrives at Grand Central Coffee Shop

USA Technologies announced today that for Aug 2010 the Company hit small-ticket, wireless transactions of $8.3 million, which puts the company on an annualized run rate of approximately $100 million, a 72% YoY increase, through its ePort cashless payment systems for vending machines, kiosks and other unattended point-of-sale terminals. Total transactions processed in Aug 2010 were 4.6M, an increase of 98% over total transactions processed in August 2009.

USA Technologies recently announced that the adoption of its cashless vending payment technology is accelerating.

The Company recently announced that it had increased the number of devices connected to its network by approximately 9,000 during the quarter ended June 30, 2010, bringing the total number of devices connected at June 30, 2010 to over 82,000, compared to approximately 52,000 as of June 30, 2009.

Over on our sister PaymentsViews.com blog, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson is asking for community input regarding the perception of deployment of contactless POS readers at merchants in the US market. If you can spare a minute, please take Carol's quick survey - and optionally sign up to receive a copy of the results!

The Secure POS Vendor Alliance (SPVA), a non-profit business organization founded by Hypercom, Ingenico and VeriFone has announced the release of its End-to-End Encryption Security Requirements related to payment card data in payment card reading devices. The paper is targeted to vendors of POS devices and is intended to help create "widespread understanding of payment security issues and the adoption of best practices." READ MORE »

Heartland Payment Systems has announced the commercial launch of its new payment card security technology. According to the company, "Heartland has spent more than two years developing and ten months beta testing and iteratively improving this end-to-end encryption technology — called E3™ — that is designed to protect cardholder credit and debit card data, rendering scrambled data useless to cybercriminals." READ MORE »

First Data Corporation has announced it has expanded the merchant pilot of the its TransArmor data security solution to more than 400 U.S. merchants. FDC's TransArmor solution was developed in partnership with EMC Corporation and "addresses the root cause of merchant data security issues by removing payment card data from the merchant environment as part of processing the transaction, significantly reducing risk and the scope of PCI compliance efforts." READ MORE »

VeriFone Holdings has announced PAYware Mobile - a payment solution for the Apple iPhone that it says "provides small businesses with simple and secure card processing capabilities on the popular smartphone platform. VeriFone’s payment solution for the iPhone puts mainstream payment processing capabilities in the hands of small business merchants who need a mobile card acceptance solution for enterprises such as home repair, small cafes, door-to-door sales, or virtually any other type of business." READ MORE »

Ingenico and HSBC Merchant Services have announce that they have extended their partnership and will be working together on a four year deal worth £13m. Ingenico was chosen by HSBC Merchant Services to supply its merchants with advanced services, including 37,000 new payment terminals within the UK. READ MORE »

Chase Paymentech has announced a joint initiative with VeriFone and Semtek to provide end-to-end encryption technologies for merchants to combat threats to security. The companies said they "will work together to market and distribute VeriFone’s VeriShield Protect solution to the Chase Paymentech base of retail merchants. The end-to-end encryption solution is designed to help merchants reduce the costs to comply with Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements and associated security risk by protecting card information from the point of swipe to the Chase Paymentech authorization host." READ MORE »

Ingenico has announced the launch of the Payment Personal Digital Assistant (PayPDA), the Ingenico iPA280. According to the company, by "combining secure card payment and PDA functionality, the unique Ingenico device transforms the sales environment into a mobile POS, offering superior quality of service and a complete purchasing experience. This includes secured payment through instant access to online value added applications - from online databases and web based business applications to stock and timetable queries, GPS location services, order processing and even lottery sales." READ MORE »

Four electronic payment companies - Chase Paymentech, Mustang MicroSystems, Inc., Semtek Corporation and Transaction Network Services - have joined the Secure POS Vendor Alliance (SPVA), a non-profit business organization founded by Hypercom, Ingenico S.A. and VeriFone. The SPVA works to advance compliance of existing payment card security standards, protect cardholder information and defend merchants and acquirers against security breaches. READ MORE »

In an article titled "Getting the Garden Ready: First Data and Mobile Payments at the Point of Sale" over on our sister Payments Views blog, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson takes a look at mobile payments for local point-of-sale transactions and, in particular, First Data's efforts in that regard.

In preparing the article, Carol interviewed Barry McCarthy, President, Mobile Commerce Solutions for First Data, who discussed the four key pieces required for mobile payments at POS: the upgrade of the POS terminal base, availability of NFC-enabled phones, card issuer participation, and consumer education.

VeriFone Holdings has announced that RBS WorldPay has agreed to work jointly towards marketing VeriFone's VeriShield Protect end-to-end solution for encrypting payment card data. According to VeriFone, "RBS WorldPay is the first merchant acquirer to endorse a commercial end-to-end encryption solution. By encrypting the card number on swipe, right at the point of sale, RBS WorldPay merchants who choose the VeriShield Protect solution will be able to dramatically reduce both their own risk and that of their customers as well." READ MORE »

Global Payments Asia-Pacific Limited, a joint venture between HSBC and Global Payments, has introduced Global BroadbandPay - calling it "an Internet Protocol (IP)-based point-of-sale solution that provides merchants with fast, secure and reliable card acceptance services across the Asia-Pacific region. Merchants and processing partners no longer need to rely on slow dial-up networks or invest in expensive dedicated communication links to their card acquiring banks. Instead, this new product enables use of their existing internet connection to enjoy a "plug-and-play" experience. Global BroadbandPay is now available to merchants in Brunei, Hong Kong, Macau, the Maldives, the Philippines, Singapore and Sri Lanka." READ MORE »

Hypercom, Ingenico, and VeriFone have announced the formation of the Secure POS Vendor Alliance - SPVA, a non-profit business organization chartered with implementing common payment security standards among vendors of secure point-of-sale (POS) devices used by retailers, acquirers and cardholders alike. READ MORE »

TSYS Acquiring Solutions has announced the availability of two new all-in-one point-of-sale (POS) solutions to help small- and mid-sized retailers integrate store operations with the point of purchase. Offered as a complete business-in-a-box, each solution includes hardware components and Microsoft software to help retailers manage every aspect of their business. READ MORE »

First Data has announced the introduction of two new point of sale (POS) terminals, the FD300 and the FD200. "Developed based on merchant feedback, these devices offer unique capabilities that expand First Data's proprietary terminal line. The FD300 is designed for operations that have more than one business at the same location, and the FD200 is an all-in-one device that supports multiple payment types." READ MORE »

Ingenico has announced a new open architecture security enhancement, the Ingenico On-Guard solution, that the company says "will encrypt cardholder data from the transaction terminal to the merchant host, thus adding a significant security layer to card transactions that used to communicate in the clear. The new solution will be available on the Ingenico terminals sold in North America." READ MORE »