Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

A report from the U.S. Department of Education shows that fees college students pay for campus-sponsored prepaid cards and deposit accounts can vary widely. The report was prepared by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the Education Department and completed in February, but not released until Friday. The release came …

With massive data breaches hitting the headlines and account-takeover fraud booming, payments players are scrambling for solutions. One possibility is so-called behavioral biometrics, a science that tries to detect imposters’ fraudulent activity in real time by comparing their online behavior with the known patterns of a genuine user. The latest …

In an escalation of its bidding war for remote deposit capture software provider Mitek Systems Inc., business-software firm ASG Technologies, a portfolio company of the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp., upped its unsolicited buyout offer from $10 per Mitek share to $11.50 in cash. ASG also said there are no …

7-Eleven Inc. is among the latest retailers to empower consumers to become their own point-of-sale checkout when they use an app on their smart phones. A central component of that capability is the image-capture tool built into the app. The 7-Eleven Scan & Pay service, which is in tests now and …

Television streaming service Hulu LLC says it now accepts PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Venmo peer-to-peer payment service. Hulu could be a major win in PayPal’s ongoing effort to increase the popular Venmo’s profitability because the service will generate a recurring revenue stream. Founded in 2007, Santa Monica, Calif.-based Hulu competes with …

Bill-to-mobile is often sidelined in discussions about mobile payments, but Boku Inc. brought the technique to center stage this week with a deal to acquire San Jose, Calif.-based Danal Inc. Boku’s shares, which trade on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market, fell in the wake of the announcement, with …

UATP, an airline-owned payment network, said it is adding Chase Pay to its network, a move that should make it easier for airlines to accept JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Pay in their apps and Web sites. NCR Corp. completed its $184 million acquisition of merchant processor JetPay Corp. Payments …

In a vast and rapidly growing commercial card market, virtual cards are grabbing dollar-volume share and are poised to dominate business-to-business card payments, according to research from Accenture Payments. Corporate cards, purchasing cards, and virtual cards will account for $523 billion in U.S. commercial card volume, up 10% from 2017, …

OnDeck Capital Inc. said it will combine its Canadian lending operations with Evolocity Financial Group, a Montreal-based online small-business lender. The combined entity will be branded OnDeck Canada. Terms were not disclosed. Mobile-payments specialist Glance Technologies Inc. announced a referral agreement for cash advances with Merchant Advance Capital L.P. Hackers …

NACHA is not taking a position on whether the Federal Reserve should build a proposed real-time settlement system, but in comments this week the automated clearing house governing body said it is concerned the Fed’s current proposal is “too narrowly focused” and favors instant payments at the expense of other …

Merchants using the point-of-sale system from National Retail Solutions Inc. soon will have the ability to use a potentially crime-thwarting value-add feature. The Newark, N.J.-based company is adding a silent alarm feature to its POS system. Expected to be available by the end of the first quarter, the feature involves …

Citing its potential effects on payments-market competition, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority has now ordered an in-depth review of PayPal Holdings Inc.’s acquisition of Sweden-based processor iZettle AB. A PayPal spokesperson told Reuters the company is working with the CMA and plans to demonstrate the market will remain …

Shares of transaction-processing companies lost ground in November for the second month in a row, but the decline wasn’t nearly as great as October’s 10% plunge, according to new data from Barrington Research Associates Inc. The Chicago-based investment firm says share prices of a group of 26 publicly traded transaction …

European merchants could see their costs to accept Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. payment cards issued outside of Europe decline by 40% under separate proposals submitted by the two leading card networks to settle competition concerns raised by European Union antitrust authorities. The European Commission, the administrative arm of the …

The surge in popularity for peer-to-peer payments is making itself felt in the realm of holiday gifting, helping to erode a longstanding cultural taboo against giving cash during the annual gift-giving season. Gift transactions rose 47.2% in December 2017 over the monthly average for the previous August through October, according …

Digital Check Corp. said its ScanBox by Digital Check tablet-based scanning platform is now available in North and South America following its release in other markets. In a Cardtronics plc survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, 73% use cash regularly and 92% want a choice in how they pay. Commercial bank Signature …

Mastercard Inc. and Next Retail Concepts are bringing to retailers a virtual-shopping experience that has shoppable products. The three-dimensional, digital environment, available across any Web browser, enables consumers to view and buy products as if they were in the store. Images are from the store and include products selected by …

Crafting a mobile-payments strategy can be a daunting task. The technology is evolving rapidly, and so are consumer expectations. Rather than starting with capabilities, a successful mobile strategy begins with an understanding of how people engage with their finances as part of their daily lives. Evaluating how consumers use mobile …

FreedomPay announced Nando’s, an international fast-casual restaurant chain, will use FreedomPay’s point-to-point encryption payments platform in its Oracle Micros Simphony POS system installations. Payments provider SpotOn Transact LLC agreed to offer acceptance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to merchants via a partnership with Vaultbank, a blockchain-technology firm. Kevin Jones, founder …

The payments industry changes quickly as new regulations and market demands force continual improvement. Legacy systems struggle to keep up, and the ISOs on those platforms feel the pain. PaymentSpring felt it was time to change that by creating a flexible new processing platform that gives ISOs and software providers …