Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

• Mobile-commerce technology provider Sionic Mobile launched a mobile-payment and loyalty app called Style Rewards for hair salons. The app was introduced in collaboration with Style Media22, an interactive digital-media agency for salon professionals. • Mobile point-of-sale technology provider CardFlight agreed to offer its SwipeSimple EMV solution to merchant clients of …

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/dt/201611/

Kohl’s Corp. joins the ranks of retailers with their own mobile-wallet services with the launch last month of Kohl’s Pay. Menomonee Falls, Wis.-based Kohl’s said the barcode mobile-payment service exclusively uses the private-label Kohl’s Charge card as the payment mechanism in more than 1,100 Kohl’s stores. To use Kohl’s Pay, …

Consumers continue to pay higher fees for out-of-network ATM transactions, but have more access to free, non-interest checking accounts, says Bankrate Inc.’s annual survey of checking-account fees. Combined surcharges levied by ATM deployers and a consumer’s own bank total $4.57, up 5 cents, or 1.1%, from a year ago, a …

A year into the migration to EMV chip cards, most consumers—83%—still are unsure of whether to dip or swipe their chip-enabled credit or debit cards at the point of sale. That statistic comes from a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers commissioned by payments specialist Cayan LLC and conducted by Research …

While the payments business is caught up these days in working out strategies for mobile apps and social media, it turns out these aren’t the cutting-edge technologies they once were. Instead, fields like virtual reality, machine learning, and natural language are winning the spotlight. That’s according to a study that …

Consumers may shop in stores more than they do online, but for most—93%—the research into these purchases is taking place online, finds a survey released Tuesday by Revel Systems, an iPad-based point-of-sale system provider. More consumers, 86%, shopping in person at least twice in the month proceeding the July survey …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews If the payments industry is expecting a sharp rise in online fraud, it can stop holding its breath. It’s already happening, and with the official holiday-shopping season getting under way, it’s going to get a lot worse. Yet, just as attacks are growing more numerous, funding …

• Boosted by its November 2015 acquisition of software developer SunGard, processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) reported third-quarter revenues of $2.31 billion, up 46.2% from a year earlier. Revenues grew 3.8% on an organic basis. • Co-Op Financial Services said it will provide its online bill-payment application to …

Merchant acquirer Square Inc. started out offering credit and debit card acceptance to tiny businesses and part-time sellers who wanted to accept plastic, but volume from Square’s biggest merchants grew 55% year-over-year in the third quarter and now accounts for 43% of Square’s gross volume. Square, which refers to all …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The new version of the 3-D Secure online-authentication technology is better for merchants and consumers and thus likely to get more adoption than the old version, according to security experts. EMVCo, the chip card standards body owned by the world’s six leading payment card networks, released 3-D …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Alphabet Inc.’s Android Pay mobile wallet made some headlines recently with the company’s announcement that the app would be available to Masterpass and Visa Checkout users for Softcard mobile-payments venture managed by leading telecom companies. Smart Tap is available now in all U.S. Walgreen’s stores as …

• RYDE Technologies Inc. launched an overhauled version of its ride-hailing app RYDE, first launched last year to compete with Uber and Lyft. As with other such apps, RYDE processes payments in the background against a stored card, summons taxicabs and black cars rather than private vehicles. • The Bancorp Inc., …

By Jim Daly@DTPayment News Most of the chatter about how the debit card market has changed in the five years since the Durbin Amendment took effect centers on what market leader Visa Inc. is doing, or how the electronic funds transfer networks are maneuvering to stay alive and grow. But …

• Early Warning Services LLC, a fraud-management company, announced an alliance with NuData Security that enables Early Warning to use behavioral analytics and risk assessment as part of its authentication platform. • Money-transfer revenue for MoneyGram International totaled $339.6 million for the third quarter, up 5% on a constant-currency basis …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The ride-sharing service Uber is strongly associated with mobile apps, not with plastic. But prepaid card providers such as Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. are finding new opportunities in the so-called sharing economy exemplified by Uber, in which drivers using their own vehicles offer taxi-like services to riders. …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Retailer Kohl’s Corp. plans to tweak its newly launched OmnyPay Inc. The service works only with the Kohl’s Charge card, issued by Capital One N.A. Lavu predicts Kohl’s Pay will generate copious amounts of data, especially given that enrollment in the app is up by 70% following …

• Financial-institution processor Fiserv Inc. said its payments segment posted adjusted revenues of $701 million in the third quarter, up 9% from $643 million a year earlier. Operating income rose 11.5% to $242 million. • Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced service changes in the U.S. and Mexico, and lower prices, involving …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Online merchants are dreading an onslaught of fraud, but what they should really brace for is a much bigger problem: so-called new version, which comes from EMVCo, the standards body controlled by the global card brands, will work in-app as well as within browser-based shopping sessions and …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews As payments firms seek to commercialize emerging online marketplaces, they’re starting to leverage automated routines that promise to overturn traditional transaction methods and, just possibly, deliver on the long-sought goal of so-called frictionless payments. This week, both MasterCard Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. announced new initiatives …