Morgan Stanley is seeking to spin off of Discover Financial Services if an acceptable price is offered.    

Pipeline Data Inc. has signed a letter of intent to acquire Florida-based Charge.com, an e-commerce merchant acquirer. Under the terms of the agreement, Pipeline will buy Charge.com for $7.5 million in cash, $3.5 million in the form of a promissory note, 5 million shares of Pipeline common stock and an additional 1 million shares of Pipeline common stock.
   The acquisition of Charge.com increases Pipeline Data’s portfolio to 25,000 accounts. The combined entity is expected to generate in excess of 1,000 new merchant accounts monthly.    

Mercantec, which provides e-commerce solutions to small and mid-sized businesses, and Ambiron, which provides data security and compliance services in the payment industry, recently teamed up to develop test of PCI SecureSite, an integrated e-commerce compliance solution. PCI SecureSite is designed to secure merchant transactions critical junctures - from the Web hosting provider to the shopping cart to the payment gateway.
   Ambiron and Mercantec are seeking validation from Visa USA of PCI SecureSite as the industry's first official "end-to-end" compliance solution.
   For acquiring banks and ISOs who underwrite and mange thousands of merchants, the integrated solution provides assurance that their merchants and service providers are operating in within industry security standards.
    Payment Card Industry (PCI) Level 3 and Level 4 merchants - who adopt the integrated solution for the transaction process would achieve automatic validation of their compliance with card association data security standards.    

Sterling Payment Technologies, a developer and provider of merchant card processing solutions and PixelPoint Technologies, a developer of restaurant POS systems have integrated their systems.    

Western Reserve Group shipped 2,012 Genesis ATMs in 2004, the company recently announced. In addition to manufacturing the machines, WRG provides ATM transaction processing and financing services, with over 4,500 locations currently under contract.    

TeleCash, a First Data company and a German payment processor, has selected Ingrian DataSecure Platforms as an additional layer of security for the privacy and protection of credit card data.    

Credit Union 24 will add more than 10,000 ATM locations to its network through ATM deployer ATM Express, Inc. The agreement will bring CU24's 15 million cardholders to ATM Express terminals, and will allow CU24-member credit unions access to a total of more than 75,000 ATMs across the country.
    The agreement is also expected to boost transaction volumes for ATM Express and its acquirer business partners.    

IRN Payment Systems and WAY Systems have teamed up to offer secure, mobile, phone-based POS solutions.
   WAY Systems, Inc., provides mobile payment transaction solutions that transform low-cost GSM mobile phones into secure wireless POS terminals using standard General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks. The handheld device, known as the Mobile Transaction Terminal, enables merchants to accept card payments virtually anywhere, anytime.    

HIMC Corporation has agreed to acquire Fast Transact, Inc., provider of Internet and retail credit card processing, for a combination of cash and HIMC stock. The acquisition is subject to approval by Fast Transact’s shareholders, which can occur only after the HIMC shares to be issued in the merger have been registered with the SEC.    

First Data Corp. is now processing card payments at Burger King restaurants in Canada, which expands its relationship with the quick-service restaurant chain. . First Data also handles card processing for Burger King’s U.S.-based restaurants.
    First Data’s payment processing solution in Canada supports the MasterCard Quick Payment Service (QPS) program, which eliminates the need for a signature on the receipt for purchases under $25 with a MasterCard card.
    Burger King Canada is the largest merchant in Canada to incorporate MasterCard QPS    

MasterCard International recently launched the Payment Data Protection (PDP) program, a new initiative to help merchants and their business partners safeguard card transaction data and prevent fraud. The program will focus on how to best store, secure and share transaction data.    

Pay By Touch announced steady progress with merchant implementation and consumer adoption of its ACH product, Express Checking.
    Express Checking was tested in the recently concluded pilot for PigglyWiggly Carolina Co. grocery stores. The grocery store chain saw such positive results with Pay By Touch that in January it announced the expansion of the technology to all of its stores throughout the Southeast. A Piggly Wiggly survey revealed that shoppers like Pay By Touch as an alternative because it is “faster, safer and more convenient” than other payment methods.    

RDM Corporation recently unveiled the newest version of its Image & Transaction Management System (ITMS) product. ITMS is a Web-based payments processing system designed to facilitate the electronic deposit and settlement of payments received by paper check.
    ITMS is designed for businesses that have many points of remote or distributed collection for check payments, as well as those who have large central processing centers. ITMS provides billers and financial institutions with a payment platform that enables them to take advantage of the efficiencies and cost savings of electronic check conversion (ECC) for both point-of-purchase (POP) and accounts receivable conversion (ARC) payments, as well as Check 21 and Image Exchange at the point of presentment.    

WebAssist.com recently launched Express Checkout, a new payment service.
    With Express Checkout, Web developers, auction sellers and online businesses of all sizes get an immediate online store connection and their shoppers get to use their regular credit cards in a secure environment.
    Express Checkout offers low credit card discount rates and no application fees, annual fees, leasing arrangements or termination penalties. Businesses in U.S., Canada, U.K and several European countries can the service. Express Checkout is available to U.S. companies and home businesses through WebAssist's merchant bank partner, e-onlinedata.    

Electronic Clearing House, Inc. has signed an agreement with CTW Prepaid, LLC (CTW) to provide Visa POS check services. CTW specializes in customizedprepaid telecom solutions for the convenience store industry.    

Q Comm International, Inc., a provider of prepaid transaction processing and electronic POS distribution solutions, has developed a prepaid application to run on the Lipman (Nasdaq, TASE: LPMA) Nurit 8320 multi-application POS terminal. The application launch is expected sometime in the second quarter.    

Russian Standard Bank will exclusively issue and market American Express Card products in Russia. These RSB-issued cards will display the classic look of traditional American Express Cards issued around the world and be accepted on the American Express global merchant network.
    RSB will issue the first Russian ruble-denominated American Express Cards and can also issue US dollar-denominated American Express Cards.    

Harland Financial Solutions, Inc. recently completed the acquisition of Cincinnati-based Intrieve, Inc. for $78 million.
    Harland Financial Solutions' latest acquisition expands its product and service lineup to include outsourced core processing for more than 150 thrifts and community banks, comprehensive item processing, and electronic banking and payments processing. The acquisition also includes in-house financial management software, turnkey check and MICR document printing systems, and a data center operation that provides co-location and hot-site disaster recovery services.    

Payments company Peppercoin and secure transaction solutions provider Ingenico, are partnering to offer a complete small payments solution for merchants. With Peppercoin's Small Transaction Suite, merchants can accept credit and debit cards for small payments, resulting in new revenue streams, new customers and reduced transaction costs.
    With 7.5 million payment terminals installed in over 90 countries, Ingenico devices process billions of transactions annually. For U.S. merchants, Ingenico and Peppercoin are integrating Peppercoin's small payment service with Ingenico's Debitek payment systems.    

More than 562.6 million Mastercard International debit cards were issued last year, an 8% increase over 2003, the issuer recently announced.
    Merchant acceptance of MasterCard PIN debit cards likewise grew substantially in 2004. Consumers can now make PIN debit POS transactions with their MasterCard and Maestro branded card at more than 8.4 million merchant locations globally. Furthermore, Cirrus, the world's largest PIN-based ATM brand, offers secure access to cash and other banking services at more than 1 million ATMs around the world. This represents an 8.7% increase from December 2003.    

U.S. District court judge recently dismissed all claims brought against MasterCard International by Paycom Billing Services, Inc. The judge ruled that Paycom suffered no antitrust harm as a result of MasterCard's rules or policies.
    The ruling was made in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York by Judge David G. Trager. Paycom was represented by Lloyd Constantine's firm, which also represented the merchants in the class action relating to debit.    

Cash Technologies, Inc.’ subsidiary, Heuristic Technologies, Inc. recently signed a Service and joint marketing agreement with Copeland, Burtnick & Associates, Ltd. (CBA), an e-commerce technology and infrastructure company.
    Heuristic will provide data processing services to CBA. The two companies will jointly market the CashTech.Card, a MasterCard stored-value card distributed by Heuristic and issued by MetaBank.
    Under the three-year agreement, CBA will market the CashTech.Card to its customers for general use. CBA will distribute at least 15,000 cards in the next 14 months.