Visa Inc. says its new online payment service, Visa Checkout, should help improve conversion rates for e-commerce retailers by making it easier for consumers to pay. The service, available in the United States, Canada and Australia, enables consumers to pay online on any device, Visa says. Visa Checkout replaces the V.me online wallet Visa introduced in 2012. 

Consumers enroll in Visa Checkout by supplying their names, addresses, payment card information and creating usernames and passwords.

We couldn't help but notice at ISO&Agent that a certain processor has been growing at an incredible rate. Clearent, which is based in the St. Louis area and employs 125 people, processed $4.4 billion in transaction volume last year, an increase of 61% over the previous 12 months. How did it grow that much? We persuaded CEO Dan Geraty to explain his company's explosive increase in volume.

Maybe it was the celebration of our independence on the 4th of July that got British columnist, John Gapper, annoyed enough with the US to write a piece in the FT last week that took our banking and payments systems to task. In that piece, Gapper claims that the US "lags behind badly in the basic infrastructure of retail banking." It surely wasn't a critical look at what's been accomplished in the US with respect to innovation in banking and payments.

Apple iOS users in the U.S. and a handful of other countries now have access to Apple's new iTunes Pass feature, which first debuted in Japan.

Customers in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, and the U.K. can now use the Passbook-based service to refill iTunes account balances at brick-and-mortar Apple Stores. To get started, visit the iTunes Store on your iDevice, then scroll down to the "Redeem" button and follow the on-screen instructions.

Twitter has acquired a payment startup called CardSpring. CardSpring helps developers write applications that accept credit card payments. Startups like Foursquare already use CardSpring. CardSpring raised $10 million from investors like SV Angel, Greylock Partners, Accel Partners, Felicis Ventures, and Data Collective. It was founded by Amit Kumar, Jeff Winner, Eckart Walther and Geraud Boyer.

A decade after the idea was first sketched on the proverbial drawing broad, Starbucks is poised to finally let its customers order their coffees from their phones. And the company's plans for building on its wildly successful mobile app don't stop there. The Seattle-based coffee giant, which said in March that more than 14 percent of purchases in its U.S. stores are paid for through its app, will allow customers in one undisclosed geographic test market to start placing pickup orders from the Starbucks app later this year.

EBay Inc posted a 13 percent rise in quarterly revenue on Wednesday, as better-than-expected results from its fast-growing PayPal division helped the online retailer overcome increasing competition from Amazon.com Inc and a well-publicized cyber attack. Investors had been braced for a tough quarter. 

Snappay? Snapchat may try to monetize by processing peer-to-peer payments, money transfers, or online payments, according to twotrademarks it filed earlier this week. Owned by Snapchat and filed on July 11th by an attorney at Cooley, which is known to be Snapchat's law firm, the trademarks could keep anyone else from entering the same space under the Snapchat name. 

The Atlanta-based company, BitPay, has been hard at work developing solutions for businesses and individuals in the bitcoin space, and from this, recently released a beta of their new multi-signature wallet, Copay. The wallet is completely open-source and aims to provide a multi-signature transaction that occurs on the blockchain and allows complete control of user funds. Released early last week, Copay can change the way bitcoin users think about transaction processes.

Companies aren't waiting on Congress to ensure that the billions of dollars in electronic payments flowing through data networks each year are defended from hackers. Data breaches were thrust in the spotlight after hackers broke into the networks of retailers during last year's holiday season. Lawmakers held a slew of hearings in the aftermath and many proposed legislation intended to ensure that consumers are warned promptly when their information is put at risk.

If New York State is illustrative of a national trend, hacking poses a greater threat to businesses and other organizations than other types of data breaches. External cyberattacks represent 40 percent of the nearly 5,000 breaches recorded in the state from 2006 through 2013, according to a new report issued by the state attorney general.

May require subscription to read. A lawsuit filed last month by the payday lending industry's trade group, the Community Financial Services Association of America, against several federal agencies offers a study in government paternalism. The lawsuit is a long shot, attempting to stop regulators from harassing payday lenders through coercive advice to banks and intrusive investigations. But the association's complaint has drawn sufficient interest in Washington to have prompted a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Blogger Brian Krebs is responsible for breaking many a story about cybercrime, including Target's massive data breach in fall 2014 that compromised the credit and personal information of more than 70 million shoppers. But more than anything, he believes that retailers need to fundamentally change the way they respond to breaches. 

Though Sen. Mark Warner amended a controversial cybersecurity bill to increase congressional oversight, proponents of privacy and computer security say it still isn't enough to overcome broader concerns.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted 12-3 last week to forward the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act to the full Senate for consideration. 

Like a toddler balancing on newly-discovered, yet slightly rubbery legs, consumer spending tottered a bit in June, but remained on its feet, poised to tackle its next steps forward. While slower than last month, solid June spending growth in a number of sectors was reported today by First Data Corporation, the global leader in payment technology and services solutions, in its First Data SpendTrend� analysis for May 31, 2014 through June 30, 2014, compared to June 1, 2013 through July 1, 2013. 

In the week that ended July 12, the number of initial filings for regular state unemployment-insurance benefits fell by 3,000 to 302,000, the fewest new weekly filings since May, the U.S. Labor Department reported. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected initial filings to reach 310,000. The average of new claims over the past month declined by 3,000 to 309,000 - the lowest level since June 2007.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told lawmakers the central bank must press on with record monetary stimulus to combat persistent job-market weakness. "There are mixed signals concerning the economy," Yellen said in response to questions during testimony to the Senate Banking Committee today. "We need to be careful to make sure that the economy is on a solid trajectory before we consider raising interest rates." 

Even as a clutch of new payment technology companies including Zooz Mobile and Plastiq announce new financing rounds today, it seems like investors are no longer paying out for payment companies. Over the past three quarters, the number of venture-backed payments companies has declined, tumbling from 59 startups in the third quarter of 2013 to just 41 companies in the second quarter of 2014, according to CrunchBase data.

First Data Corporation Tuesday announced the commercial integration of its Perka mobile loyalty product. Its apps are now available through First Data distribution systems, according to a press release. Perka is a cloud-based customer loyalty product that connects businesses to their customers using location-based apps and mobile phones, according to the announcement. 

Visa Inc. , the global leader in payments, today announced the opening of One Market, a 112,000 square foot innovation center and office space at One Market Street in San Francisco. The move provides Visa technologists, clients, partners and the Bay Area tech community an innovative space to jointly develop the next generation of commerce applications.                        

TransFirst, a leading provider of transaction processing services and payment enabling technologies, announces participation in a new program that makes a special offer for payment processing services available to Time Warner Cable Business Class customers. Under the arrangement, TransFirst will offer its state-of-the-art payment and credit card processing services - including point of sale (POS) systems, desktop processing, online credit card processing, Web-based virtual terminals and mobile solutions - to Time Warner Cable Business Class subscribers through the cable company's new PerkZone customer perks program.

TSYS announced that Chuck Harris has been named senior executive vice president of TSYS and will continue to serve as president of NetSpend, a TSYS company. Harris succeeds Dan Henry as the top executive of NetSpend, who is leaving the company after serving in the role of chief executive officer since 2008. The leadership transition will be effective July 31, 2014.

Following the successful acquisition of ElectraCard Services Private Limited, MasterCard announced that it has appointed Ram Chari as Chief Executive Officer of ECS. Based in Pune, India, Mr. Chari will lead the electronic payments solution provider in delivering the full spectrum of processing solutions and services to enhance MasterCard's offerings across Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa (APMEA).

International payment systems Visa and MasterCard said on Thursday new U.S. sanctions, which targeted Russia's Gazprombank and VEB among other firms, did not affect their operations in Russia. "This sanctions package does not affect Visa operations in Russia, cards are being serviced in a normal way," a spokesman for Visa said.

ProPay�, a TSYS� company, announced a partnership with ThreatMetrix� to provide advanced fraud prevention solutions to its customers. Through this partnership, ProPay customers can have access to state-of-the-art tools to help protect them against cybercriminals. The solution - a cloud-based, real-time identity verification tool - helps validate returning customers and prospects, while protecting a wide range of transactions, including account creation, login authentication, and payment authorization.      

Christopher Augustin, a financial services technology innovator whose experience spans nearly three decades at some of the world's top firms, has joined First Data, the global leader in payment technology and services solutions, as chief information officer (CIO). In his new role, Augustin will lead the company's software development work, engineering processes and software and application development strategy across the company. 

Mercury StoreCard now enables local merchants to offer their customers a gift, reward, mobile payments and promotions card all in one product.

Mercury Payment Systems�, an award-winning provider of payment technology and services, is making Mercury StoreCard™ widely available to all Mercury merchants. Mercury StoreCard enables small businesses to compete with larger retailers by providing a stored value card utilizing affordable technology.

Heartland Payment Systems�, one of the nation's largest payment processors and a leading provider of merchant business solutions, continues its growth in the parking payment industry by signing a new seven-year deal with SP+, an industry leader in the parking management, ground transportation, and ancillary services space. 

Alpha Card Services, a leading payments processor and business solutions company has launched a revolutionary new POS program for merchants called SELECTpay. According to Alpha Card Services, SELECTpay is designed to equip merchants with an affordable, feature-rich POS solution, without sacrificing quality or service. This program is available with all Alpha Restaurant, Retail and Salon POS systems; and there are no upfront costs, no hidden fees, and affordable payments to the merchant.

CashStar, the digital gifting company preferred by the world's leading brands, today announced that its real-time digital gifting platform is now fully integrated with Google Wallet. The integration enables brands on the CashStar platform to offer digital gift card recipients the ability to easily save their eGift Cards to Google Wallet, where they can store and manage gift cards alongside loyalty program cards and offers.