Industry News

Metavante Corp., recently signed a definitive agreement to buy the assets of Paytrust Inc., the Lawrenceville, NJ-based online bill-management company.

"This enables us to provide businesses and consumers, through their financial institutions, with enhanced capability to realize expanded benefits in electronic billpresentment and payment," said Metavante CEO Joseph L. Delgadillo.

Payment company, Paymentech, recently partnered with ThruComm, Inc., a leading provider of managed networking services of Electronic Funds Transfer to provide �Online, All the Time' connectivity for merchants nationwide.

ThruComm Integrator can cut processing to 3-5 seconds and achieve online connections at or below dial-up costs. ThruComm's network service options include a low cost frame relay, satellite and fixed wireless connectivity to support POS or back-office applications.

Online auctioneer eBay Inc. recently reached an agreement to buy PayPal Inc. for $1.5 billion in a deal that would result in the elimination of eBay's Billpoint payment service.

"Having the leading payment processor fully integrated into the leading e-commerce site brings a great deal more value to both companies," said Legg Mason analyst Tom Underwood. "It also keeps eBay's focus on providing a more full-service offering."

MasterCard International had a busy summer, becoming a private company and completing its merger with Europay, as well as entering the payroll card business.

Europay eventually will change its name to MasterCard International.

The state of Georgia will use Hypercom's web-enabled ICE POS terminals for Internet-based management of public health programs. Hypercom officials see the move as an important step in the company's strategy to expand beyond traditional payment systems, and could provide some opportunities for some ISOs to explore non-traditional markets.

Hypercom also recently introduced a comprehensive suite of Internet-hosted applications for POS terminals, epicDirect, which enables ISOs to use a PC, a browser and the Internet to manage a base of card payment terminals and merchants. The suite enables ISOs to offer merchants updated applications without doing any development themselves, according to Hypercom officials.

Billserv recently added person-to-person payments for its customers via an enhanced version of its consumer online bill presentment and payment service at www.bills.com . The new service gives consumers the ability to pay anyone with an e-mail address, transfer money between multiple checking and savings accounts, view and pay additional eBills and receive eBill summaries in their e-mail inboxes.

The service also enables the recipient to receive payment via an ACH transaction to a financial institution account. PayPal, by contrast, requires recipients and payers to have PayPal accounts.

Global Payments Inc. recently teamed up with Sears National Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sears, Roebuck and Co., to be the payment processing engine for a new, strategic partnership program that Sears is developing with other merchants that would include acceptance of Sears' private label credit card.

Currently, Sears cardholders can use the Sears card for purchases made in Sears stores and authorized or licensed Sears retail outlets; however, Sears plans to extend the acceptance of its private label card to a targeted group of merchants with whom it will enter into strategic partnerships. The merchants may include airline, hotel, restaurants, fuel, supermarkets and entertainment companies that do not compete directly with Sears.

Ingenico recently introduced its Elite 640, a customer-activated payment terminal with integrated smart card reader, for use by US major multi-lane retailers. Ingenico is the worldwide payment terminal shipment leader and is the leading provider of payment management solutions for major retailers in North America.

The Elite 640 supports credit, check cards, debit cards, EBT, loyalty, gift cards, phone cards and smart card based transactions.