Denver-based IP Commerce has announced it has raised $17 million in Series C financing led by Venrock with Total Technology Ventures also joining as a new investor. The Company’s existing investors, Meritage Funds, Appian Ventures and Iron Gate Capital also participated in the financing.   » Continue Reading

CSC has announced that "MasterCard Worldwide is using CSC's CAMS II Card & Merchant System to power its newly launched debit and prepaid processing platform, MasterCard Integrated Processing Solutions (IPS). The MasterCard platform provides a suite of debit and card issuer processing services that enables financial institutions to quickly expand their payments offerings across banking channels."   » Continue Reading

WAUSAU Financial Systems and ClairMail have announced an agreement to extend the mobile channel to WAUSAU's remittance processing solutions. According to the two companies, "by integrating ClairMail's Mobile Lockbox technology with its remittance processing managed service, WAUSAU will empower its customers to include payments via mobile phones as part of their receivables processing offering to their clients."   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced that it has signed an agreement with EUFISERV and its fifteen shareholders (including twelve European banks and banking organizations) to expand and develop the European inter-bank processing network managed by EUFISERV. The two companies said that "connecting the existing networks of EUFISERV and First Data will create the opportunity for customers to access more than 74,000 ATMs, 1.5 million POS merchants and to reach more than 165 million debit and credit card accounts in Europe."   » Continue Reading

Metavante Technologies Ltd. has announced that it has been granted Payment Application Best Practice (PABP) certification from Visa Europe for both card issuing and transaction acquiring. Metavante Technologies Ltd., a provider of prepaid and debit card processing and licensed software in Europe, is part of Metavante, a U.S.-based provider of banking and payments technology.   » Continue Reading

Although taken private by KKR last fall, First Data Corp. continues to announce its financial results - and today reported financial results for the first quarter of 2008. Consolidated revenues were up 16% to $2.1 billion while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were up 8% to $586 million. FDC also commented on Chase Paymentech, its largest merchant alliance, noting that it "expects the alliance to end prior to its existing expiration date in 2010." The company is holding a conference call tomorrow morning to review its results.   » Continue Reading

ACI Worldwide has announced that MasterCard Worldwide has selected ACI's electronic payment solutions as key elements of the new MasterCard Integrated Processing Solutions (IPS) announced in early April. MasterCard IPS provides banks a suite of branded debit network and card issuer processing services including PIN and signature debit and prepaid processing, and ATM driving.   » Continue Reading

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency late last week issued new risk management guidance to banks on the subject of payment processors. The OCC said that 'certain merchants, such as telemarketers, pose a higher risk than other merchants and require additional due diligence and close monitoring.'   » Continue Reading

TSYS has announced the renewal of a long-term agreement with Target Corporation to service its REDcard portfolio. The multi-year agreement will include systems processing for the Target Visa Credit Card, Target Credit CardS, Target Check Card and the Target Business Card. According to TSYS, Target was recently named by the Nilson Report as one of the top-five Visa credit card issuers, with more than 21.4 million accounts on file. Target began working with TSYS in 2000 for the launch of its Visa product. TSYS began supporting the Target Credit Card portfolio in 2005.   » Continue Reading

Late today, Alliance Data Systems announced that it has terminated the May 17, 2007 merger agreement providing for the acquisition of Alliance Data by affiliates of The Blackstone Group.   » Continue Reading

Metavante has announced an agreement with Advanced Payment Solutions (APS), making it the payment processing house for the entire prepaid portfolio of APS, including the cashplus prepaid gold MasterCard, the Gap Year cashplus card and a range of other fully re-loadable prepaid MasterCard programmes.   » Continue Reading

Frontier Airlines this morning announced it had voluntarily filed to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code late last night. The airline is continuing normal flight operations today.   » Continue Reading

Tony Adams writes for the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer about TSYS' announcement yesterday of its n>gen next generation processing platform designed to 'cater to a faster and more mobile business and consumer world.'

MasterCard Worldwide has announced a new debit processing platform,MasterCard Integrated Processing Solutions (IPS), calling it 'a powerful MasterCard-engineered debit processing platform" that "offers financial institutions a complete processing solution to help create differentiated products and services, enabling them to quickly expand their payments portfolios across banking channels.'

MasterCard held a conference call this morning to discuss IPS. A presentation is also available.   » Continue Reading

TSYS has announced the launch of n>gen - calling it 'a new business paradigm that makes it easy for TSYS clients to efficiently and thoroughly manage all their complex payments-related business needs with point-and-click ease.'   » Continue Reading

In an article titled 'Fiserv Is Largely Immune To Banking's Plagues', Jack Willoughby writes for Barron's this weekend that Fiserv may be among the 'companies whose earnings are likely to rise this year.'

ACI Worldwide held an investor day in New York City earlier this week. The presentation slides are available online (note that it's an 18+ MB file and may take a bit of time for you to download!)

Jack Henry & Associates has announced that goDough, its mobile banking solution, has been adopted by 54 of its core banking clients. goDough is a browser-based solution developed internally by Jack Henry & Associates and introduced in November 2007. [Editor's Note: Last September, Glenbrook's Russ Jones posted a 10-Step Cookbook for Glenbrook's Mobile Banking Strategy recommending that bankers get to work enabling a browser-based mobile banking solution.]   » Continue Reading

Metavante Technologies has announced the acquisition of London-based Nomad Payments Limited, a provider of prepaid and debit card processing and licensed software. The purchase price was approximately $58 million. Nomad will now operate as Metavante Technologies Limited, part of the Metavante International Group.   » Continue Reading

Aite Group has announced a new report titled "Core Processors: Will Integration Pay?" that it says "examines the key drivers of high performance in the core processing vendor space, and the impact of tightly integrated sales strategies and product offerings."   » Continue Reading

The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general have charged a payment processor with violating federal and state laws by debiting, or attempting to debit from consumers’ bank accounts on behalf of numerous fraudulent telemarketers and Internet-based merchants.   » Continue Reading

Earlier this week, TSYS held an investor day for analysts - a webcast along with accompanying slides of the presentations are available online.

TSYS has announced that "it has entered into an agreement and plan of distribution with Synovus, under which Synovus plans to distribute all of its shares of TSYS common stock in a spin-off to Synovus shareholders. Under the terms and conditions of the agreement, TSYS will become a fully independent company."   » Continue Reading

Péralte C. Paul writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about TSYS becoming a Discover issuing processor. "The deal gives Columbus-based Total System, or TSYS, processing rights on the networks of all four major credit card companies — American Express Co., Visa USA, MasterCard International and Discover — for the first time."

Update: Here's yesterday's press release from Discover announcing the new TSYS relationship. According to Discover, "the agreement, which will provide issuers with more options in choosing a preferred processor on the Discover Network, is part of the Discover Network's commitment to offering payment solutions that deliver significant value to issuers."

Moneygram International has announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Oakland, California-based PropertyBridge, Inc., a provider of electronic payment services to the residential real estate management industry. Moneygram says the acquisition, expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007, "will expand the reach of MoneyGram’s global brand and line of payment services into a dynamic and synergistic market."   » Continue Reading

Online Resources Corporation has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Internet Transaction Solutions, a biller service provider (BSP) to receivables management companies and utilities.   » Continue Reading

TowerGroup says that while historically private equity has not been strongly attracted to the technology companies serving the financial services industry, private equity firms are now "starting to see beauty in the financial technology sector, reflected in the value of its products, its revenues and its client base. Stickier revenue models, more spending by clients, and a global business environment that demands innovation will encourage private equity firms to take a closer look at the technology providers to the financial services industry, accelerating investment in this sector."   » Continue Reading

Jane Larson writes for the Arizona Republic about the acquisition of EFD/eFunds Corp. by Fidelity National Information Services announced last week and what that might mean for jobs in the Scottsdale headquarters of EFD.

Fidelity National Information Services and EFD/eFunds have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement whereby FIS will acquire EFD in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion.   » Continue Reading

Regions Financial Corp. and Visa USA have announced a long-term partnership agreement whereby "Regions will continue to offer all Visa consumer debit products to its customers, including Visa check card, Interlink and Plus. In an extension to the previous partnership agreement, Regions will switch all its processing services to Visa USA for all Visa check card, Interlink and Plus transactions. Regions currently issues Visa credit card products and will continue to do so under a separate agreement."   » Continue Reading

Affiliated Computer Services has announced that its airport parking applications in North America will begin accepting MasterCard PayPass contactless payments. ACS is a leader in large airport parking systems, with more than 20 current installations at the nation’s busiest airports.   » Continue Reading

Acxiom has announced that it has "entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Silver Lake, the leading investment firm focused on large-scale investments in technology-driven growth industries, and ValueAct Capital, one of the largest investment firms that makes strategic block and control investments in public and private companies. Silver Lake and ValueAct Capital will acquire 100 percent of the outstanding equity interests in the company in an all-cash transaction valued at $3.0 billion, including the assumption of approximately $756 million of debt."   » Continue Reading

GTCR has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell TransFirst to Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe for $683 million. TransFirst is a provider of transaction processing services and payment enabling technologies. The company currently processes approximately $25 billion in annual sales volume for more than 155,000 merchants and 965 financial institutions. Originally founded as ACS Merchant Services in 1995, GTCR partnered with TransFirst CEO Thomas Rouse to re-capitalize the company in 2000.   » Continue Reading

Payment Alliance International has announced that it has acquired the principal operating assets of NetBank Payment Systems (NPS), adding over 8,500 ATMs to PAI's base to become the third largest ATM Processor in the United States.   » Continue Reading

Marshall & Ilsley Corporation has announced it will be splitting Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and Metavante Corporation into independent public companies. "Under an investment agreement with Warburg Pincus, a global private equity investor, Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest $625 million to acquire an equity stake of 25 percent in Metavante Corporation. Marshall & Ilsley Corporation shareholders will own 75 percent of the shares of Metavante Corporation. The plan will be implemented through the spin-off of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and is intended to be tax-free to Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and its shareholders."   » Continue Reading

Dennis K. Berman, Valerie Bauerlein and Robin Sidel report for the Wall St. Journal that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is in talks to acquire First Data Corp. Reuters reported this evening that KKR was set to offer $34 per share for FDC - more than a 26% premium compared to FDC's Friday closing stock price. Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael J. De La Merced report for the New York Times that the deal is expected to be announced tomorrow morning.

First Data International has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire POLCARD SA, Poland's leading independent merchant acquirer and card issuer processor, in an all-cash transaction for $325 million.   » Continue Reading

ACI Worldwide has announced the launch of an ACI On Demand offering, allowing financial institutions and retailers in North America to use the company’spayments software through a hosted solution arrangement. ACI says it "will configure and host a unique copy of its software to meet the needs of each customer, offering greater control than traditional outsourcing and multi-tenant arrangements while freeing clients from the job of staffing and managing their own systems infrastructure."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "EFT/ATM Network Processing Review: Purchasing Services, Building Volume" - a review of the major EFT and ATM processors' offerings to financial institutions that examines debit processing, the significant cost differences between PIN debit and signature debit, and the impact of rewards programs on issuers, merchants and the consumer.   » Continue Reading

Intuit and Electronic Clearing House Inc. have announced signing of a definitive agreement for Intuit to acquire ECHO for a total purchase price is approximately $142 million on a fully-diluted basis.   » Continue Reading

Investors Business Daily reports on how payments transaction processors are moving into new niches for growth - including Heartland, Global Payments, and TSYS.

According to a Reuters report, Retail Decisions Plc said yesterday it had agreed to a $314 million cash offer from RD Card Ltd, a private firm set up by Palamon Capital Partners.

TSYS has announced that it has increased its ownership in China UnionPay Data Services Co. Ltd. to 44.5 percent. CUP Data is China’s largest bankcard processor, providing transaction processing, disaster recovery and other services for issuing banks in China. Since CUP Data was established in 2003, the company has been providing processing services to 16 of China’s 29 credit card-issuing banks, while 12 of the remaining banks continue these services in house.

Litle & Co., a payment processor for direct marketing merchants, has announced that it was ranked number one on the Inc. 500 list of the country’s fastest growing private companies. Litle & Co. says it topped the list with a three-year sales growth of 5,629% and 2005 revenues of $34.8 Million. The Inc. 500 list can be found in the September print issue and will be available online on September 19th.   » Continue Reading

First Data International and Argencard S.A. have announced that they have signed an agreement for the acquisition of Argencard by First Data. According to First Data, Argencard is a leading payment processor in Argentina and Uruguay.   » Continue Reading

Payment Processing, Inc. has announced a partnership with mobile commerce provider Verrus to offer integrated credit card payment processing for pay by cell phone parking service.   » Continue Reading

Australia's newest payments processing business, Strategic Payments Services Pty Limited (SPS) has appointed Mr Adrian Cosenza, former Group Executive and Head of Group Strategic Development at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, as its Chief Executive Officer. SPS is Australia~s newest payments processing business focused on delivering innovative and cost effective payment processing services to the Australian and regional market. SPS is a joint venture between Bendigo Bank Limited (40%), Customers Limited (40%) and MasterCard Asia/Pacific (Australia) Pty Limited (20%).

eCommLink has announced that it has been selected to process transactions generated by the Allow Card Prepaid MasterCard, a card designed to teach financial accountability to America's youth.   » Continue Reading

TSYS has announced the acquisition of Card Tech, Ltd., a privately owned London-based payments firm that has implemented its payments software for six of the 25 largest global banks and three of the largest global card issuers. Worldwide, the company has approximately 190 clients from 70 countries -- primarily banks. Its applications are certified by all of the major global payment networks. The all-cash transaction closed on 11 July 2006. The new company will be known as TSYS Card Tech.   » Continue Reading

Ben Harrington reports for the UK's Daily Telegraph on reports that Wright Express has entered the bidding to acquire Retail Decisions. Harrington also reports that Comdata and FleetCor as well as a private equity firm may be among other potential bidders for Retail Decisions.

According to a statement released yesterday, Retail Decisions says that "it has received an increased indicative proposal which may or may not lead to an offer being made to purchase the entire share capital of the Company. The Company has also received a number of other unsolicited approaches from third parties. In view of these events, the Board of Retail Decisions has concluded that it should engage in discussions with bona fide potential offerors in order to assess if an acceptable offer will be forthcoming."

Dynamic Card Solutions has announced a preferred vendor agreement with Datacard Group that will expand joint marketing efforts in the instant issuance market segment by designating DCS' CardWizard technology as a Datacard Group preferred software solution and Datacard Group as a preferred card personalization system and services provider for DCS.   » Continue Reading

Barclays Bank and TRANSFIRST have announced a strategic partnership to provide U.S. merchants with processing solutions for worldwide payment transactions with TRANSFIRST becoming a registered International Service Organisation/Member Service Provider of Barclays Bank. These services will allow U.S. merchants to accept payment in Europe, in their international customers' currency of choice while receiving U.S. dollars for payment.   » Continue Reading

TSYS and Wachovia have announced a long term agreement for TSYS to provide core-processing and other related services in support of Wachovia's re-entry into the consumer credit-card line of business.   » Continue Reading

Wausau Financial Systems has announced it has changed its trade name and logo to WAUSAU. The company will use the tagline, "Reinventing Financial Solutions" with the logo as part of its new identity.   » Continue Reading

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has published its Best of Business 2006 list of Georgia companies - including profiles of several payments-related firms: CheckFree, CompuCredit, Global Payments, and Synovus.

Online Resources Corporation has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Princeton eCom Corporation, an electronic payments provider to financial institutions and billers.   » Continue Reading

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has published a paper written by Ramon P. DeGennaro, SunTrust Professor of Finance at the University of Tennessee and Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, titled Merchant Acquirers & Payment Card Processors: A Look Inside The Black Box" (PDF).   » Continue Reading

Vital Processing Services has announced the re-branding of the company to TSYS Acquiring Solutions.   » Continue Reading

CyberSource has announced two senior management appointments: Scott Cruickshank as president and chief operating officer and David Hansen as president of BidPay.com, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary acquired by CyberSource on March 7, 2006.   » Continue Reading

CNET's Joris Evers reports on suspicious card activity that took place over the weekend affecting a few merchants on Authorize.net's payment gateway - and how the unusual activity was detected by the merchants involved as a result of the email alerts sent out by Authorize.net the the merchants on each transaction.   » Continue Reading

S1 Corporation has announced a strategic relationship with PassMark Security to integrate PassMark's risk-based authentication security system with its retail and small business online banking solutions to S1's nearly 1,000 financial institution customers.   » Continue Reading

CardinalCommerce has announced it is now partnering with MODASolutions to offer SECURE-eBill, a payment option that enables consumers to shop online and pay for their purchases through the comfort and security of their online banking account.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced that it plans to separate its Western Union consumer payments business into an independent publicly traded company through a tax-free spin-off of 100% of Western Union to First Data shareholders.   » Continue Reading

Fiserv has announced the acquisition of CareGain, Inc. saying the company "will serve as a key element of Fiserv's solution set for health plans and financial institutions to help them manage consumer-directed health plans and related healthcare spending accounts."   » Continue Reading

CheckFree has announced the acquisition of PhoneCharge, a provider of telephone and Internet-based bill payment services, for approximately $100 million in a cash transaction that closed effective January 1, 2006.   » Continue Reading

Bruce Mohl reports for the Boston Globe on Certegy's check verification services used by retailers and how the services don't always work perfectly.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced an agreement for the acquisition of GZS by First Data. GZS is Germany's leading processor of cashless, card-based payment transactions. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Completion of the transaction, which is expected to occur in the second quarter 2006, is subject to approval of relevant authorities.

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Certegy has announced it is acquiring the assets of FastFunds Financial and its wholly owned subsidiary Chex Services for approximately $14 million in cash.   » Continue Reading

TSYS has announced that it has received official notification from Bank of America of its intent, pending its acquisition of MBNA, to shift the processing of its consumer card portfolio in house in October 2006.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced that it will take a restructuring charge in the fourth quarter of approximately $0.05 per share related to a reduction of about 3% of its workforce, primarily in the Card Issuing Services segment.   » Continue Reading

Virgil Larson writes for the Omaha World-Herald about First Data's Omaha-based card issuing division and the company's exploration of strategic alternatives for that business.   » Continue Reading

Pay By Touch has announced it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of CardSystems Solutions, Inc. for $47 million in stock and cash.   » Continue Reading

First Data Corp. has announced that David P. Bailis has been appointed to oversee the company's Card Issuing Services unit. The company also said that the previously announced strategic review of its U.S. card issuing business is continuing.   » Continue Reading

New Edge Networks has announced that it has established a direct network connection to American Express, enabling merchants to process transactions directly with the card network.   » Continue Reading

Pay By Touch and NCR Corporation have announced an alliance to offer merchants around the world a single point of contact for supporting their entire merchant and consumer biometric needs.   » Continue Reading

The New York Times is reporting that Pay By Touch is expected to announce today the acquisition of BioPay, its chief rival in the fingerprint biometric payments market.

Update: Here's the official Pay By Touch press release on the acquisition.   » Continue Reading

New Edge Networks has announced that it has established high-speed direct network connections with First Data Corp. that will allow New Edge Network merchants to use First Data for processing bankcard transactions faster and at no added cost.   » Continue Reading

Laurie Sullivan reports for TechWeb News on Vancouver-based Digital Payment Technologies Corp. and its pay-by-cellular phone parking application.   » Continue Reading

Pay By Touch has announced it has acquired Capture Resource, a supplier of integrated reward programs and business process outsourcing solutions.   » Continue Reading

Aldo Svaldi reports for the Denver Post on FDC's deal with retiring CEO Charlie Fote.   » Continue Reading