Home Depot Inc. and a coalition of dissenting plaintiff retailers and retail associations served notice on Nov. 27, 2012, to the U.S. Eastern District of New York that they will appeal the preliminary approval of a proposed $7.2 billion settlement of their class action antitrust suit. The merchants allege Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide interchange fees violate U.S. antitrust law. In his preliminary approval order, U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson scheduled the final approval hearing for Sept. 12, 2013. He also issued an injunction prohibiting any member of the class from challenging the settlement agreement pending its final approval.

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Unified Payments LLC was named a gold winner for the Best in Biz Awards for the Fastest-Growing Company of the Year category. Unified said the award was a result of the ISO's strategic acquisitions, creative sales planning and technological innovation at the POS. Integrated bill payment, invoicing and cash management solution provider Bill.com also became a Best in Biz gold winner, in the Support Department of the Year category. Bill.com said it is the only solution that connects a user's bank, bookkeeping and business.

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The 2012 holiday shopping season will be a windfall for gift card providers, according to the National Retail Federation. BIGinsight research, sponsored by the NRF, showed that 81.1 percent of shoppers will purchase at least one gift card during the holidays and shoppers will spend an average of $156.86 on gift cards, which represents the highest amount in the survey's 10-year history, the NRF said.

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The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) recently released a set of best practices designed to help organizations assess and correct security vulnerabilities. The supplement's objective is to help merchants, service providers, acquirers and issuers comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). The document was produced by the PCI Risk Assessment Special Interest Group (SIG), which included representatives from banks, retailers, security assessors and technology vendors.

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PayAnywhere, North American Bancard's mobile POS solution, launched a nationwide retail channel Nov. 19, 2012. The credit card reader and mobile payments software is now sold by some of the nation's largest retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., OfficeMax Inc., Sam's Club and The Home Depot, among others. Marc Gardner, NAB and PayAnywhere founder and Chief Executive Officer, said the PayAnywhere solution is "the only mobile POS choice for real businesses" because it is "designed to support the needs of real businesses from the moment a sale begins to when the money is deposited in the bank, and everything in between."

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When it launched Project Catalyst, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took an approach uncommon for a federal regulator, as an incubator of financial services innovation. The CFPB called Project Catalyst an open forum designed to cultivate the exchange of innovative ideas about consumer friendly financial services products and to inform the federal agency about how to regulate the business sector.

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Forecasting the payments industry's future was the agenda at the Electronic Transactions Association's Silicon Valley Day held at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco Nov. 15, 2012. The event brought together representatives of new, high-tech payment companies and executives from traditional payment businesses.

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It's traditional at Thanksgiving to remember the many ways we are blessed. This year we, at The Green Sheet, continue to give thanks for our loyal readers and advertisers and the support they so often provide us. We also want to take this opportunity to remember those who witnessed and sustained vast amounts of damage to their homes, communities and businesses during Hurricane Sandy. May the coming year bring a solid recovery leading to prosperity, peace and happiness to you all.

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On Nov. 16, 2012, Visa Inc. reported in its annual Form 10K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition requested the card company provide information regarding potential violations of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The potential violations pertain to Visa's transaction routing policies.

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In the Incentive Research Foundation's Fall 2012 Pulse Survey, the organization found that businesses are rewarding employees more often with merchandise, gift cards and individual travel as economic conditions disfavor group incentive travel programs. Thirty-one percent of survey respondents indicated they intend to increase the use of gift cards as employee rewards in 2013.

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New payment technologies developed in California's Silicon Valley represent opportunities for ISOs willing to adapt their business models to emphasize more value to merchants, Jason Oxman, Chief Executive Officer of the Electronic Transactions Association, said in an interview with The Green Sheet during the ETA's Silicon Valley Day held in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2012.

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The Women's Network in Electronic Transactions (W.net) recently appointed Shawn Taylor Zelman as Executive Director. Since 2004, Zelman has served as a consultant and Senior Director for Coulter, W.net's management company. She has worked with such clients as the National Association of Women Business Owners and Resolve: The National Infertility Association. Marla Knutson, W.net President and TransFirst LLC President of Financial Institutions, stated, "W.net is so fortunate to have Shawn as our Executive Director. Her experience and background will complement our vision and strategies and help us move W.net to the next level."

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A trend toward prepaid calling services is apparently taking hold internationally. A report by Voxofon LLC, a Houston-based international voice and messaging services provider, said a large percentage of international subscription plan users who try prepaid calling solutions abandon their subscriptions in favor of prepaid.

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Boston area commuters began piloting the nation's first mobile ticketing program for commuter trains Nov. 12, 2012. Riders will be able to purchase tickets in seconds via the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority mobile wallet application, mTicket. The free application is available for Apple Inc. iPhones and devices using the Google Inc. Android operating system. The electronic ticket is stored in the application's ticket wallet on the phone and displayed as an encrypted bar code. The new commuter payment system uses Masabi US Ltd.'s Just Ride mobile ticketing platform.

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The Ohio State Senate has undertaken a bill designed to require the Ohio Department of Taxation to offer its taxpayers the option of receiving income tax refunds on prepaid cards. Currently, Ohioans can receive refunds by paper check or electronically via direct deposit to bank accounts. The bill, S.B. 365, would direct Ohio's tax commissioner to add the tax refund card option.

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Reports of remarkable courage and endurance came into The Green Sheet as acquirers in the region rode out Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. Writing on GS Online's MLS Forum from Lakewood, N.J., in Ocean County, one of the hardest hit areas in Sandy's path, MAKETELINC reported many in his town were still without power and heat days after the storm struck, but they were still better off than towns just a few miles away. "The boardwalks are gone," he noted. County officials reported Nov. 8, 2012, that four people died in Ocean County as a result of the storm

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Despite objections from powerful forces in the payments industry, Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. Eastern District of New York gave preliminary approval on Nov. 7, 2012, to a proposed $7.2 billion settlement of antitrust claims against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide. The suit concerns the card companies' interchange rules and was brought on behalf of more than 7 million U.S. merchants. First Data Corp., PayPal Inc. and the National ATM Council all submitted objections to the proposed settlement in the first week of November 2012. They argued that settlement terms would give MasterCard and Visa an unfair competitive advantage and wrongly prohibit future antitrust actions even if the facts were significantly different than the issues litigated in the retailers' suit.

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The Federal Communications Commission charged telecommunications giant AT&T with switching wireless prepaid customers to monthly data plans, despite telling those customers that they could keep their pay-as-you-go plans. AT&T agreed to pay $700,000 to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and refund customers who paid for monthly data plans, which could range from $25 to $30 per month, the FCC said.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted data privacy solutions provider CSR a patent on Nov. 7, 2012, for its PCI ToolKit. This was in recognition of the innovative nature of the ToolKit's questionnaire and attestation method, according to CSR. The patent is U.S. Patent No. 8,296,244.

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Mobile payment technology provider CreditCall Ltd. and terminal manufacturer Ingenico S.A. both released of Europay/MasterCard/Visa (EMV) solutions in the first week of November, providing a potential boost to the introduction of the standard to the U.S. market. Card companies are promulgating retail adoption of the EMV standard and technology by 2015, at which time liability for card present fraud could shift to merchants whose systems are deemed unsecure in the event of a breach. EMV replaces the prevailing U.S. mag stripe card technology with a card equipped with a small micro processing chip that securely transmits customer information to payment terminals via radio transmission.

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A proposed new rule by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) would require travelers to declare the balances on prepaid cards at border crossings, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The Oct. 29, 2012, post on the Atlanta Fed's Portals and Rails blog said that FinCEN issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to expand the scope of its cross-border reporting requirements to include "tangible prepaid access devices."

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On Nov. 1, 2012, ISO North American Bancard joined the PCI Security Standards Council as a Participating Organization. In its new role, NAB will work closely with the council to achieve and improve payment data security through the ongoing development of PCI Security Standards, which include the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, PIN Transaction Security requirements and the Payment Application Data Security Standard. "Payment data security is North American Bancard's top priority and our intention is to be an active participant in critical security conversations with other Participating Organizations of the PCI Security Standards Council so that we may raise the bar for the entire industry," stated Tracy Metzger, Chief Information Officer at NAB.

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As the holiday season approaches, ISO Certified Payment Processing LP offered its top 10 reasons why merchants should offer gift cards.

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A new white paper from The Members Group entitled The EMV Roadmap: Designing Your Financial Institution's Plan outlines practical guidelines for financial institutions (FIs) considering migration to the Europay/MasterCard/Visa (EMV) standard in response to card brand timelines for EMV adoption and ensuing changes in fraud liability. "With liability shift timelines in place, financial institutions may feel compelled to implement EMV immediately," wrote co-authors TMG Director of Client Relations Matt Flynn and Brandon Kuehl, TMG Product Development Architect. "However, it's important to understand these timelines are not mandated."

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