Financial/Banking

Atlanta -- Dollar year-over-year volume growth during the month of March 2014 remained positive at 2.1%, but slipped from February’s growth of 2.4%, according to the First Data Corp. SpendTrend report. The report, which analyzes same-store point-of-sale data by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks from nearly four million U.S.

San Jose, Calif. – EBay Inc. has reached an agreement with investor Carl Icahn, ending the proxy contest before the company’s upcoming annual meeting of stockholders. Icahn is withdrawing both his proposal to separate the company’s PayPal business and his two nominees to the company’s board of directors.

San Francisco -- Zynga Inc. named former Best Buy executive David Lee as CFO, effective April 14, as the online games company and creator of “Farmville” seeks to return to growth. He will replace current CFO Mark Vranesh who has decided to leave the company.

Lee was previously the senior VP of corporate finance, treasury, mergers and acquisitions and corporate strategy at Best Buy.

New York -- Japanese online giant Rakuten has teamed up with First Bankcard to launch the Rakuten Rewards MasterCard Program, which provides cardholders with reward points for using their credit card to shop on Rakuten.com and elsewhere.

Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, is Rakuten's U.S. marketplace, offering consumers more than 17 million products at everyday low prices from a network of small and large business shop owners.

San Jose, Calif. -- VeriFone Systems Inc. plans to release the VX 690, a handheld EMV-capable payment terminal featuring Bluetooth, 3G radio and Wi-Fi connectivity for fast transactions and flexible payment capabilities, in late 2014. The terminal is PCI PTS 3.0 compliant and features built-in security protection that includes end-to-end encryption to protect data at every point of the transaction.

Consumer reviews provider Viewpoints is poised to acquire PowerReviews from Bazaarevoice after a court agreed with the Department of Justice that Bazarrevoice’s acquisition of PowerReviews two years earlier was anticompetitive.
 

Rakuten has teamed up with First Bankcard to launch the Rakuten Rewards MasterCard Program, which provides cardholders with reward points for using their credit card to shop on Rakuten.com and elsewhere.  

Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, is Rakuten's U.S. marketplace, offering consumers more than 17 million products at everyday low prices from a network of small and large business shop owners.

Woonsocket, R.I. -- CVS Caremark Corp. agreed to pay $20 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it misled investors in 2009 during a debt offering and by accounting improperly for an acquisition.

The SEC said CVS failed to disclose while marketing $1.5 billion of bonds in September 2009 having recently lost significant Medicare and contract revenue streams in its pharmacy benefits manager business.