News

Hypercom Lands $13 Million Contract with Concord EFS

As part of a deal valued at $13 million, Concord EFS, Inc. will use tens of thousands of Hypercom Corp.'s card payment terminals and value-added Web-based services; these include Hypercom's electronic signature and receipt capture, on- screen/receipt advertising and the ICE 5700 terminal with a check reader. The ICE 5700 will serve as the platform for Concord's STAR Universal Terminal, integrating credit, debit, EBT, check conversion, warranty services and IDLogix age verification. According to Edward A. Labry III, Concord's President, Concord was looking for the ability to provide its customers with time-saving applications that also generate revenue at the merchant countertop.

Hypercom Creates New Strategy Group

Hypercom has formed an official group within the company to pursue growth opportunities in areas beyond the traditional payments industry. Hypercom's Chief Strategist and founder, George Wallner, will head the new group, called Secure Systems & Transactions Group (SST). SST will integrate Hypercom's newly developed biometric, secure identification, age verification and transaction security products and systems. Recent partnerships with CVS Corp. and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the new Georgia Health Partnership, and Identico Systems' photo ID software have demonstrated Hypercom's ability to expand into new markets.

Three Ingenico Terminals Certified

Ingenico announced that its Elite 510 countertop, Elite 712 "hand-over" countertop and Elite 770 short-range wireless terminals, all built on Ingenico's common Unicapt architecture, have been awarded Vital Processing Services' Class B platform-certification. Vital certified Ingenico's terminals with Certegy (Equifax) and TeleCheck, including driver's license and keyed MICR input support. Vital also certified the devices for debit and credit card acceptance in retail and restaurant establishments.

New PayPal Facility in Nebraska

PayPal announced plans to build an 115,200 square-foot customer service and operations facility in La Vista, Neb., by early 2003. The new building will be able to accommodate up to 1,200 people and will feature innovative design and construction such as a window view and individual temperature control for each employee, a cafe with indoor and outdoor dining areas, a modern fitness center, and easy access to interstate highways; it also will be located near a four-acre lake. The new facility, which will be owned entirely by PayPal, will consolidate the company's current 540 employees from two buildings in Omaha.

Secure Payment Systems Certifies Services

Secure Payment Systems, Inc. announced that it has certified all of its host-based electronic check conversion, imaging and gift card processing services for use on both the Lipman NURIT and Thales Talento point-of-sale terminals.

Humboldt Leaving ISO Business

In its first of several steps to exit the ISO sponsorship business, Eureka-Calif.-based Humboldt Bancorp announced it has definitively agreed to sell its proprietary merchant processing division and other related assets to iPayment Holdings, Inc. (IPH), a Nashville, Tenn.-based provider of merchant card services, for $34 million in cash. Humboldt expects the sale to be completed by Aug. 31, 2002. Humboldt plans to completely exit the ISO sponsorship business as its remaining ISO contracts expire over the next 18 months.

Humboldt also announced that its board of directors has authorized a new stock-repurchase plan for up to one million, or 9.7%, of total shares outstanding. In February 2002, Humboldt repurchased approximately 285,000 shares under a 500,000-share repurchase program. In addition, Humboldt declared a six-for-five stock split, payable to shareholders of record as of Aug. 5, 2002, on Aug. 19, 2002.

More Banks Moving to EPN

The Electronic Payments Network (EPN), a private automated clearing house (ACH) operator for domestic consumer and commercial payments, announced that Comerica Inc. and 19 Arizona financial institutions have begun moving ACH transaction volume to EPN's private-sector electronic payments system.

Arizona Federal Credit Union, Capitol Bancorp (with 16 member banks), Grand Canyon Federal Credit Union and Honeywell Aerospace Federal Credit Union are some of the Arizona institutions moving to EPN. Until recently, these institutions were members of the American Clearing House Association (ACHA), which is closing its ACH operations at the end of September 2002 after 19 years in business. More than 80 customers will need to find a new ACH processor. Comerica is moving its volume over to EPN from the Federal Reserve.

Current ACH operators include EPN, Visa, ACHA and the Federal Reserve. EPN has grown more than 100 percent in the last year.

Partnerships

CrossCheck Adds 2 Customers in the West

Rohnert Park, Calif.-based CrossCheck, Inc., will provide check guarantee services to Brown & Brown Automotive Group of Mesa, Ariz. Brown & Brown, founded in 1927, is a top retail Chevrolet and Nissan dealer. CrossCheck offers several different programs that allow automotive dealers to safely accept checks from customers.

CrossCheck announced it also will provide check services to 20 Southern California Air Conditioning Distributors, Inc. locations nationwide.

@pos Wins Two Partners

NRT Technology Corp. will market and resell @pos Inc.'s point-of-sale terminals to gaming and retail markets as a certified value-added reseller (VAR). NRT, provider of technology solutions to the retail and gaming industry, will implement @pos' signature capture products, such as the iPOS 3100, TX.C and iPOS TC terminals with NRT's players signature-capture system.

Federated Department Stores, Inc., one of the largest U.S.-based department store retailers, has selected @pos to provide approximately 5,800 price-checker units to its stores, such as Macy's, Bloomingdale's, The Bon Marche, Burdines, Rich's, Lazarus and Goldsmith's. Hoping to reduce traffic at registers, Federated Department stores chose the @pos solution so customers will be able to perform their own price checks. The first installation of @pos' price checkers is targeted for the beginning of the 2002 holiday season.

ISO Partners to Offer Check Cashing at ATMs

Cardtronics, an ISO that has about 7,500 ATMs under contract, has signed an agreement with CashWorks to offer its payroll and government-issued check-cashing solution for ATMs. The CashWorks program approves checks using PayPort, a proprietary point-of-sale countertop terminal. Cardtronics customers can operate a check-cashing service without the risks of bounced checks or holding extra cash in the cash register on paydays. Cardtronics selected CashWorks' solution because of the success of a previous CashWorks pilot program that included 25 ATMs.

Concord EFS Signs Dillard's

Dillard's, Inc., a major department store chain, has selected Concord EFS, Inc. to provide payment processing in more than 300 stores. Concord will acquire, authorize and settle payments made with MasterCard or Visa credit and debit cards or PIN-secured debit cards, such as those from Concord's STAR network. Concord provides payment processing for 31 of the top 100 U.S. retailers.

SafeCHECK Partners with 2 Check Processors

Check processors Citadel Commerce Corp. and SyTec, Inc. have partnered with SafeCHECK to provide their merchants with check verification and electronic check conversion services. SafeCHECK's solution combined with a check processor allows a merchant to immediately access a customer's checking account to guarantee that there are sufficient funds to cover the check. SafeCHECK also allows processors to debit funds through existing ATM networks. Merchants can return a cancelled check to a customer at the time of transaction.

VeriFone Selects Lease-Financing Program

VeriFone, Inc. has selected Capital Lending Services to provide a national lease-financing program for VeriFone's convenience store and retail petroleum sales division. Capital Lending Services, a division of Information Leasing Corp. (ILC), a subsidiary of Provident Bank, offers financial products for point-of-sale, back-office computer systems and services, canopies, dispensers and automatic car washes.

Subway's Jared Fogle Marketing to ... Subway

Direct Technologies, LLC (DTI), provider of point-of-sale programs and terminals using credit card processing services, in partnership with Bridgeview Bank, developed an exclusive transaction program that it plans to market to Subway restaurants called Swipe and Go. To promote Swipe and Go, DTI has signed a six-year agreement with Subway restaurant spokesperson Jared Fogle. Fogle lost 235 pounds by combining a diet of Subway sandwiches with 6 grams of fat or less and exercise and has been featured in various Subway commercials. As part of the agreement, Fogle will make promotional appearances with DTI at select Subway events.

Appointments

ETA Announces New Officers

New Electronic Transactions Association officers took over on July 1, 2002: President, Mary Gerdts; President Elect, Mary Dees; Treasurer, Diane Vogt; and Secretary, Daniel J. Neistadt. At the 2001 annual meeting, members agreed that the position of President Elect will succeed to the presidency. Mary Gerdts was elected to the position of President at that meeting.

Gerdts is President and CEO of POST Integrations, Inc., provider of electronic transaction services for the hospitality industry. Dees is President and CEO of creditranz.com, a provider of consulting services for the acquiring and commercial issuing markets. Vogt is Alliance Group President with First Data Merchant Services, a subsidiary of First Data Corp. Neistadt is President and Manager of Business Management Group, part of the electronic payment services division at KeyBank USA.

Ingenico Appoints New Director

Russ Dhooge has joined Ingenico as Director, Countertop Terminal Product Management. Dhooge held prior positions at Hypercom as Vice President of Product Marketing and at Paymentech as Director of Product Management.

ThruComm Recruits New Sales Executive

ThruComm has named Bill Caylor Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Caylor has more than 11 years of experience in the payments industry. He previously served as Senior Manager of Sales at Harris Merchant Services/Moneris Solutions. Caylor also spent nine years with First Data Merchant Services (FDMS).

Global Payments Announces New Chairman

Global Payments Inc.'s President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul R. Garcia, will assume the additional role of Chairman of the Board of Directors, succeeding Robert A. Yellowlees, following the annual shareholders' meeting in October 2002. The Board also has created a new position of Lead Director, who will work with the Chairman of the Board and Committee Chairs in establishing the regular board meeting agendas. Lead Director will chair outside director meetings, which occur as part of the regular board meetings. Yellowlees is up for re-election at the October shareholder's meeting as a director and will serve as the first outside director following this new position.

Acquisitions

eFunds Acquiring More ATMs

Building on the notion that bigger is better, eFunds continues to expand its ATM network. In July, eFunds purchased Evergreen Teller Services, Inc., a Grass Valley, Calif.-based independent provider of ATM services, for $9.4 million. Evergreen manages an ATM network of more than 1,600 ATMs in the Northwest. In May 2002, eFunds purchased Seattle-based ISO Samsar ATM Company, Inc. and its 1,000 ATMs for $3.3 million. With the acquisitions of Evergreen and Samsar, eFunds will manage 14,300 ATMs in the U.S. and Canada.