Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Many payment executives regard the United States as a mature market compared with high-growth countries in Asia and Latin America, but it still has plenty of untapped opportunities, according to Mastercard Inc. executives. Its home country remains Mastercard’s largest market. As of 2018, the U.S. accounted for 33% of Mastercard’s …

With card-based transit payments picking up steam in the United States, a key Mastercard Inc. executive said Thursday that 22% of the network’s physical-world transactions globally were contactless as of the end of 2018. The time to complete a contactless transaction is down to 0.4 seconds, added Ajay Bhalla, president …

Consumers shopping online are more than likely buying digital goods and services, suggest the results of “The Global Rise of Digital Goods and Services” report from the First Data unit of Fiserv Inc. Released Wednesday, the survey by Forrester Research Inc. of more than 6,000 online adults around the world …

United Merchant Services Inc. said it acquired the rights to Royal Western Computer’s assets, including its point-of-sale software for dry cleaning merchants, branding, trademarks, licensee database, and sales channels. Royal Western Computer holds more than 25% of the dry cleaning POS market, UMS said. The company intends to expand by combining …

Cyber criminals took no time off in the first six months of 2019 as human-initiated attacks against online sites grew by 13% from the same period a year ago, finds the LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report released Tuesday. Bots, too, evolved to target new account creations. Bot attacks targeting new …

The Libra Association announced Wednesday it has filed a request with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) for a ruling that would clarify Libra’s status and that of the Libra coin. The association also said it plans to file an application with FINMA for a license to operate as …

Mastercard Inc. said it will act as the clearing and settlement network for a cross-border payments service the company has agreed to develop with R3, a blockchain-software vendor.Some 74% of online transactions globally are for digital goods and services, with ride-share service and restaurant delivery ranking as the first and second most used …

Speedier funding of merchant accounts has become a key part of the faster-payments trend as sellers seek ways to gain a competitive edge, and on Tuesday JPMorgan Chase & Co. entered the fray with a same-day deposit service for merchants that bank with Chase. The new service, which is being …

Processor Stripe Inc. launched the Stripe Corporate Card, a Visa credit card that can be branded with the merchant’s logo. New merchants can get a card when they sign up for a Stripe account. In addition to 2% and 1% cash-back rewards, the card also offers $50,000 in free payment processing …

The Federal Reserve’s proposed FedNow real-time payments service won’t be live for more than three years, but bankers and other interested parties peppered two Fed officials with plenty of questions about it Monday. The occasion was a 90-minute webinar in which the officials reviewed the ambitious FedNow plans unveiled last …

Five years ago, Apple Inc. laid claim to offering one of the first smart phone-based mobile-payment services, and now some observers say Apple Pay, with an estimated 43% of iPhone owners using the service, may be poised to score a breakthrough. Apple Pay was announced with great fanfare Sept. 9, …

The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC granted an extension to USA Technologies Inc. allowing the provider of vending-machine payments technology more time to file financial statements. The new deadline is Sept. 23.Everlink Payment Services Inc., a payments provider in Canada, expanded deployment of the UP Payments Risk Management platform to eScore, Everlink’s machine-learning antifraud service. …

As the payment-facilitator model matures, hundreds of thousands of fintech and software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies worldwide are realizing they can provide a better customer experience and increase revenues and valuation by becoming a payment facilitator (PF). We’re seeing companies spanning every imaginable software vertical take over their payments business.  Companies like …

Fiserv Inc. said its First Data unit, together with Visa Inc. and Samsung Electronics, is demonstrating a new software-based point-of-sale technology that allows an everyday mobile device to accept contactless payments from contactless cards or phones or wearables equipped with near-field communication. A pilot of the technology is set for Poland …

In 2011, Marc Andreessen wrote his now-famous article, Software is Eating the World, which predicted that software companies would “take over large swaths of the economy.” Due to the wide adoption of broadband, mobile, and cloud-computing technology, Andreessen pointed out that the ingredients were in place for a huge boom …

The big online merchant processor Stripe Inc. on Thursday introduced Stripe Capital for its U.S. merchants, thus joining competitors such as Square Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. in providing financing for its merchants. “Stripe Capital makes it easy for Internet businesses to get the funds they need, when they need …

Cyber threat intelligence provider Check Point Research disclosed this week what it says is a flaw in some Android smart phones that enables hackers to send bogus messages that trick users into entering malicious settings that could, among other things, route traffic through a proxy server controlled by the hacker. …

Digital River Inc. said it made an e-commerce plugin for WordPress users available. Among its features, the plugin enables payment processing, PCI compliance, and fraud screening.Puerto Rico-based payment processor Evertec Inc. said it will donate $100,000 for disaster relief in the Bahamas, which have been racked by Hurricane Dorian.Compulocks Brands Inc. released a …

U.S. merchants added 600,000 locations for EMV chip card acceptance in 2019’s first six months, and Visa issuers cranked out an additional 10 million EMV payment cards, according to new figures from Visa Inc. In its latest update on the U.S. conversion from magnetic-stripe payment cards to the EMV chip …

Already nearly a year late in filing the first of several overdue financial reports and with its stock facing delisting, vending machine payments provider USA Technologies Inc. on Wednesday reported it has asked The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC for yet another extension to file required documents. The delay request is …