Our Business News

SAN FRANCISCO VeriFone Systems Inc is set to pull back from the hot business of signing up small merchants to accept credit cards payments, reducing competition for start-up Square Inc and other companies that jumped into the space recently, according to two people familiar with the situation. VeriFone, a leading provider of card readers and payment processing services, unveiled SAIL in May, a service that lets small and individual merchants accept card payments through devices that plug into smart phones and other mobile devices. The move was a response to the success of Square, a start-up led by Jack Dorsey, [...]

A bill to extend unlimited insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for some business bank accounts passed its first hurdle in the Senate Tuesday. The Senate voted 76 to 20 in favor of limiting debate on the bill, which avoids a filibuster that would have killed the legislation in the Senate. The bill would extend the Transactional Account Guarantee, or TAG, program for two years. TAG was originally created during the financial crisis to reassure businesses that, in the event of a bank failure, they wouldn’t lose the funds in the noninterest checking accounts they use to do things [...]

DUESSELDORF German solar company SolarWorld saw very good business in the United States so far in the fourth quarter, Chief Executive Frank Asbeck told Reuters on Wednesday. Asbeck also added that a strategic partnership was one of many options for the group, which had posted a 300 million euro ($ 389.97 million) net loss for the first nine months of 2012. (Reporting by Anneli Palmen; Writing by Christoph Steitz)

A leading U.S. business group on Monday said it was creating a new body called the U.S.-South Africa Business Council as part of a broader effort to respond to increased competition throughout Africa from China, Europe and others. “We need to elevate the business community’s game in the continent. We have American investment there, but we have fallen behind frankly in the last 10 years,” Myron Brilliant, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said. The initiative is the latest U.S. effort to make up lost ground in Africa, which this year is home to many of the [...]

Never charge less than what it costs to produce goods or services. Period. And if it ever comes to that, consider whether selling those goods or services makes good sense, says Mike Gatti, senior vice president of member relations for the National Retail Federation. The trick to discounting properly is avoiding cutting into the bottom line too deeply, or too often: Do it in a way that increases overall transaction value or brings customers back for repeat visits—not in a way that encourages customers to wait for sales, or think your initial prices are not the “real” price.  “A good [...]

LONDON British business minister Vince Cable said Britain could fall back into recession for a third time since the 2008 financial crisis but expected the economy to stagger on with minimal growth. In an interview published on Sunday, Cable, one of the most senior ministers in the coalition’s junior Liberal Democrats, said Britain could also face a Japanese-style stagnant “lost decade”. “There is a real worry about (that), a real risk of that,” he said. Asked if the economy was heading for a ‘triple-dip recession’, after falling twice into negative growth since the financial crisis, he said: “There is certainly [...]

Cliff Ennico, Attorney, author, columnist Don’t worry, it happens to everybody. Every business will have clients that either just stop paying or slow down payments. In a recent webinar, Dealing with Deadbeats: Getting the Money You Are Owed Fast and Legally, Cliff Ennico provides tips for what to do when these situations arise. Ennico has 32 years of experience dealing with small businesses and is considered one of North America’s foremost small-business experts. Furthermore, he has authored ten books on entrepreneurship and small-business success. When a client stops paying or slows down payment, Ennico says try to stay cool and [...]

With larger rivals like Apple (AAPL) gobbling up more enterprise market share, Research in Motion (RIMM) laid out plans on Thursday to train its business clients on the new BlackBerry 10 platform as it looks to maintain its leading presence in the workplace. The smartphone maker continues to prepare for the early-2013 launch of Blackberry10, which it is hoping will revive sales and spring the company into a new era where it can better compete with Google (GOOG) and Apple. While BlackBerry has been a staple in the workplace for years, it continues to lose ground as more businesses adopt [...]

NEW YORK One-third of the 150 employees fired in Citigroup’s investment bank this week were in the cash equities unit, which had been struggling with an industrywide decline in trading volumes, two people familiar with the layoffs said Friday. Citigroup, already a major force in fixed-income trading, had been building its stock trading efforts in recent years just as volumes began to shrink. The latest round of layoffs affected about 6 percent of the 800 people who work in the cash equities unit – with most of the cuts occurring in the United States. In equities, Citigroup had been “staffed [...]

Business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded for the first time since August, a report showed on Friday, buoyed by an improvement in the labor market. But the forward-looking new orders gauge dropped to its lowest in more than three years, suggesting the improvement may be short-lived. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago business barometer rose to 50.4, just shy of the 50.5 reading forecast by economists. The measure was 49.9 in October.  A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the regional economy. The forward-looking new orders index fell to 45.3 from 50.6 — the lowest since June 2009. The gauge [...]