Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• A bill by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, to replace 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act” would hurt consumers and Main Street businesses,” the Merchants Payments Coalition said, because the measure would do away with the financial reform law’s Durbin Amendment that regulates debit card interchange and sets debit card transaction-routing requirements. “The Hensarling proposal would promote more price-fixing and detract from the few market forces that were actually created on debit-card fees,” the MPC said. But the Electronic Payments Coalition, which takes a pro-bank and network stance, praised the bill, saying repealing debit price controls is “of critical importance.”
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued processor Intercept Corp. and its two owners for allegedly enabling unauthorized ACH withdrawals from consumer accounts and ignoring warnings about potential fraud by merchant clients, some of which reportedly racked up return rates of 20% to 40% of transactions. Intercept could not be reached for comment Tuesday morning.
• Visa Inc. introduced its Visa Digital Commerce App, a mobile-commerce application that financial institutions can brand as their own and which offers cardholders balance information, card controls, fraud alerts, and other services. Visa says more than 40 banks and credit unions already plan to use the app.
• Processor Fiserv Inc. said Me/CU will use its core processing service and other services that include payment card processing, bill pay, and digital banking.
• U.S. consumers can now send funds via The Western Union Co. to Cuba using the company’s mobile and online money-transfer service.
• Payments provider YapStone named Peter Rowan, a former Twitter Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. executive, as vice president of international operations and global customer support.
• Bluefin Payment Systems received a patent for creating fingerprints of encryption devices connected to a device management system, such as a point-to-point encryption manager.
• Malauzai Software introduced MOX Pay, a mobile app that lets businesses accept checks from consumers via remote deposit capture.
• Processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) posted information for payment card issuers to understand and prepare for digital payments.
