Point-of-sale

Fiserv will acquire First Data in an all-stock deal with a value of about $22 billion that will combine two of the financial services industry's largest technology and processing companies.

The $3.4 billion deal to take Verifone private is more than just an effort to strengthen the company. It's also a signal of how much the market has changed from the days when Verifone found itself scrambling to combat a newcomer called Square.

Global Payments hasn't hesitated to shell out huge dollars if it provides a quick-strike opportunity to pair technology with multichannel payments in markets where such marriages remain rare.

Merchant acquirers are racing to sell "integrated payments," or a one-stop shop for transaction processing and myriad other services that stores can tie to the point of sale. But small to medium sized businesses are not often the targets for these efforts.