Contents tagged with Credit Card News

  • Visa Beats Forecasts

    April 30, 2009
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/30visa.html

    Visa posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings Wednesday as the credit card network increased prices and cut expenses. The company also benefited as consumers used debit cards more.  Net income rose 70 percent, to $536 million, or 71 cents a share, for the second quarter ended March 31, compared with $314 million, or 39 cents a share, for the period a year earlier.  On an adjusted basis, quarterly net income rose 38 percent, to $553 million, or 73 cents a share. Analysts had expected earnings of 64 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.  Net operating revenue rose 13 percent, to $1.6 billion, while total processed transactions — which represent transactions processed by VisaNet — increased 6 … more

  • Industry Watch: Terminal Retirements

    April 29, 2009
    Vantage would like to take this opportunity to remind merchants of pertinent upcoming PCI DSS mandates and impacts:

    Effective July 1, 2010, acquirers must ensure their merchants use only compliant applications.

    This Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) compliance mandate is just around the corner and impacts the entire payment industry.  As a result, terminal equipment vendors are discontinuing production of hardware and replacement parts.  Payment applications previously supported are being fully retired. 

    Some merchants using late model terminals will need to upgrade within the next 14 months.  We highly recommend that merchants avoid purchasing used or refurbished terminals.  Also, please be aware of a rise in proprietary terminals … more

  • PCI DSS Resource: Prioritized Approach

    April 29, 2009
    The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) has released a new resource for achieving PCI DSS Compliance.  This new resource is referred to as the Prioritized Approach and it is intended to provide best practices that will help merchants identify and reduce risk to sensitive data.

    The tool groups together the requirements of PCI DSS v1.2 into six key milestones for merchants to consider in achieving their PCI DSS compliance. It also offers guidance on how to focus PCI DSS implementation efforts in a way that expedites the security of cardholder data. 

    Additional benefits of the Prioritized Approach are:

    An increased awareness of cardholder data security

    Assistance for businesses to identify highest risk targets

    The creation of a common … more

  • Proactive Accounting

    April 22, 2009
    Payment card processing expenses directly affect the bottom line profits of businesses.  Proactive accounting professionals can help their clients by introducing them to educational resources.  In fact a recent survey by Ajilon Finance polled over 500 finance and accounting professionals and found Accountants are spending more time on cost-cutting initiatives and on risk-assessment initiatives, as well as providing general financial advice to their clients. 

    For many companies, accepting credit cards is essential.  Because of this, businesses and merchants can benefit greatly by having a resource to learn more about the specific cost of opening and operating a merchant credit card processing account.  Making this decision without the proper knowledge and research … more

  • Google Checkout moves to tiered credit card processing rates

    March 11, 2009
    Beginning May 5, Google Checkout's fees will transition to a new tiered fee structure based upon a merchant's monthly sales processed through Checkout.   While this new fee schedule appears to be similar to PayPal, Google's transaction processing rate will vary each month based on your prior months sales volume. The new pricing plan will also eliminate the credit for Google AdWords advertising, discontinuing the processing promotion that was part of the original fee structure for Google Checkout.  Fees apply the same for Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover payments.  There are no monthly, setup, or gateway fees.  However, for cross-border transactions, there will be an additional 1% fee assessed per transaction.   To learn more about … more

  • More people go with Visa

    March 07, 2009
    In a new global ad campaign, Visa changes focus to the advantages of plastic over paper cash and checks.   Consumer perceptions of credit card brands has been trending negatively because credit limits have been reduced and cards are being canceled.  The new campaign is designed to play up the security, control and convenience of using a Visa cards.  Visa launched Visa.com/go and Visa.com/goresponsibly as part of the campaing.  more

  • State Laws on Receipt Truncation

    February 16, 2009
    In addition to federal law and various state laws which require merchants to truncate the cardholder copy of receipts, three (3) states now require merchants to truncate both the cardholder and merchant copies of receipts.  Now six states (see updated entry http://blog.vantagecard.com/post/Card-Number-Truncation-on-Merchant-Receipts.aspx

    States Requiring Full (Cardholder and Merchant) Receipt Truncation:

    Colorado - as of 01/01/2006

    Tennessee - as of 01/01/2007

    California - as of 01/01/2009

    Under the current legislation in Colorado, Tennessee and California, a merchant is required to truncate both the cardholder and merchant copy of the receipt by masking the card number and the expiration date as follows:

    Card number truncation is defined as masking all but … more

  • MasterCard Beats Estimates on Price Increases

    February 07, 2009
    MasterCard Inc., the world’s second- largest credit-card network, rose the most in three months of New York trading after beating analysts’ profit estimates by raising the price of processing international purchases.   Along with cost-cutting, it appears from its most recently announced increase for April 2009 that raising prices is the strategy MasterCard will continue.

    The continuing adoption of credit and debit cards worldwide has cushioned the effects of a U.S. slowdown.   Visa and MasterCard, which collect fees to shuttle payments between financial institutions, are insulated from rising credit-card defaults because the networks process transactions and don’t make loans to cardholders.  Banks that issued Visa and MasterCard to cardholders … more

  • Visa Reports Q1 Earnings

    February 07, 2009
    The first thing of note is that the report is based on a one quarter lag which means Visa is really reporting on the end of 2008, not Q1 2009.  While this better than expected quarterly report represents approximately 40% of their total revenue, fiscal 2009 is off to a slow start and projected to slow further in the coming quarters.

    However the resilience of Visa can be seen in the contribution of debit products in the US as consumers continue to more frequently use debit as a method of payment.  In fact, 95% of the volume in the Visa system comes from people that use debit cards which don’t have a credit limit or a credit card from people that either pay their bill in full every month or occasionally revolve and never revolve at more than 50% of their line.  Visa is … more

  • MasterCard increases its fees by 270%!

    February 03, 2009
    In an upcoming April 2009 initiative, the MasterCard Acquirer Access fee that is currently in place and being billed at a pass through cost of $0.005 per authorization is being eliminated and replaced with Network Access and Brand Usage (NABU) fee which will be billed at a pass through cost of $0.0185 per item.   This MasterCard change will greatly impact all merchants, especially those with small transaction sales.  Merchants should be prepared for this major change starting with April 2009 transaction activity.  Merchants should guard against providers that may try to apply these MC item fees to their Visa or Discover sales. 

    Read more about April 2009 Interchange adjustments...

      more