merchants

Payments processor MasterCard says it took a $495 million charge in its fourth quarter to cover potential losses from an ongoing lawsuit brought by merchants over the fees they pay on credit card transactions.

While daily deals sites are helping many businesses attract new customers, turning those new arrivals into repeat customers has proved unexpectedly difficult.

Furthermore, consumers aren’t spending over the allotted amount of their deals. Businesses are taking a hit as a result.

Daily deals site Groupon is replacing the worst 10 percent of its sales staff as it pushes to win stronger deals from merchants and ensure it can keep growing, the company's chief executive told potential IPO investors on Wednesday.

Some entrepreneurs question the usefulness of pitting customers seeking deals against merchants hoping for loyalty.

In recent months, many perfectly healthy businesses across the country have expired according to Google Places, and fixing the error has often been difficult.

Consumers are caught in the middle of a fight between financial institutions and merchants as the Senate approaches a showdown vote over whether to block the Federal Reserve from capping fees that stores pay banks every time a shopper swipes a debit card.

Jack Dorsey , founder of Square and Twitter , just took aim at the credit card. Today, Square announced a new app called Card Case , a new way to pay merchants who use Square to process payments.

The Federal Reserve is scheduled to write rules for debit card fees in April, and lobbyists for merchants and the banking industry are determined to sway the outcome.

PayPal is making more changes to its online payment service in India, saying it will begin restricting the size of payments to merchants in India because of new rules from the Reserve Bank of India.

Shoppers who skipped the crowds on Black Friday gave online merchants a 16 percent spike in revenue, according to data released Saturday.