Seth Lubove reports on the effects of some recent association rule changes on some merchant processors including InterCept who acquired iBill (Internet Billing Co.) last year.
InterCept’s stock collapsed to a recent $4 from as high as $34 last year, after the revelation that iBill lost as much as 20% of its processing business due to the new Visa rules driving away porn sites. Insult to injury, MasterCard recently declared that iBill was in “noncompliance” with the credit-card association’s chargeback rules, resulting in an assessment of almost $6 million.