Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

• Chip card standards body EMVCo issued 3-D Secure 2.0, its update of the 3-D Secure technology for protecting e-commerce transactions. The new specification supports app-based purchases on mobile and other devices and will streamline the checkout process in order reduce transaction abandonment, EMVCo says. • MasterCard Inc. announced plans to …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Consumers with Samsung Pay mobile-wallet accounts will be able to use them as a payment method for online transactions thanks to a partnership with Samsung Pay to shop using Masterpass starting in 2017. To use the service, consumers select the Masterpass button on a participating merchant’s e-commerce …

• Visa Inc. and chip maker and software provider Intel Corp. announced a two-pronged security initiative, one of which aims to protect the growing Zelle person-to-person payments network, to which Fiserv is providing a link. Zelle is expected to launch early next year. • In related news, Fifth Third Bank …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews You thought Visa Inc. was big already? Boosted by Visa Europe and solid growth in the U.S. and some other regions, the world’s largest card network’s credit and debit card payment volume grew 47% in the quarter ended Sept. 30. Foster City, Calif.-based Visa Inc. on Monday …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews With consumers spending more and more time on retailers’ shopping apps, it was only a matter of time before merchants with proprietary charge card programs began offering a digitized version of those cards within their apps. On Monday, that time arrived as store card processor Synchrony …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews In its short lifetime, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already established itself as one of the most aggressive regulators confronting the financial-services industry, including payments services. But in a speech on Sunday the director of the 5-year-old federal agency sounded a number of conciliatory notes …

• Visa Inc. announced five key person-to-person payment integrations for its Visa Direct faster-payments system, which requires Visa issuers to make funds available to cardholders within 30 minutes. These include: Jack Henry & Associates for JHA Payment Solutions, Fidelity National Information Services for its People Pay service, Stripe Inc. for …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews It’s in its infancy, but the Internet of Things, or IoT, will represent a $14 billion revenue opportunity globally by 2020 for payments firms smart enough to capitalize on it, according to research firm IDC Financial Insights. “That is a very conservative estimate,” James Wester, research director …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Consumers appear willing to take more steps to mitigate their online-fraud exposure than merchants are willing to provide, with 78% of consumers willing to enter a card-verification code, but only 57% of merchants requiring it, finds a new American Express Co. survey. Consumers are willing to take …

Visa Inc. announced Thursday that credit and debit card issuers in Europe will be the first issuers to adopt Visa’s program for using 3-D Secure 2.0, the impending update to an authentication protocol for online transactions originally introduced more than a decade ago. Visa said certain rules, such as fraud-chargeback …

Just three months after forging a landmark agreement with Visa Inc., and not quite two months after doing a similar deal with MasterCard Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc.’s top brass on Thursday indicated the agreements are already paying dividends for the San Jose, Calif.-based digital-payments company. “Our customers are now able …

• Merchant acquirer Worldpay brought its Worldpay Total integrated payments platform to the U.S.; Worldpay introduced the platform in the United Kingdom in November 2014 and extended it to European e-commerce merchants earlier this year. • U.S. Bancorp, owner of merchant acquirer Elavon, posted $412 million in merchant-processing revenues in …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews While many observers have lamented the apparently slow growth in consumers’ adoption of mobile payments, that doesn’t mean more consumers aren’t using mobile devices each year to buy things. It also doesn’t mean users aren’t getting more comfortable buying bigger-ticket items via mobile channels. Surveys by …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews U.S. consumers are becoming more aware of mobile payments, which could potentially increase use of the burgeoning digital-payment method. Indeed 56% of them are “extremely aware” of the technology, finds the 2016 North America Consumer Digital Payments Survey from Accenture. In 2015, the figure was 52%. Only …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews The loss of its cobranded card and exclusive credit card acceptance relationship with Costco Wholesale Corp. hit American Express Co. hard in the third quarter, but AmEx’s chief financial officer on Wednesday said brighter days lie ahead as the company builds new business. The quarter ended Sept. …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Charles Scharf accomplished a lot in less than four years as Visa Inc.’s chief executive—he oversaw Visa’s acquisition of Visa Europe, a groundbreaking peace accord with PayPal Holdings Inc., and a cobranding and acceptance deal with Costco Wholesale Corp., among other things—but one of his unfinished tasks …

• Mobile e-commerce grew 60% last year to reach $120 billion, with 70% of that total coming through browsers (50%) and apps (20%) accessed via smart phones, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. • Routine usage of mobile devices to make payments remains flat with last …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews While many experts have cited anecdotal evidence that more consumers would adopt and use mobile wallets if they could earn, manage, and redeem

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews With American Express Co. set to report its third-quarter financials Wednesday, the payments industry and Wall Street will be watching for signs from the beleaguered travel-and-entertainment giant about how it will recover from the loss of its cobranded card and acceptance relationship with Costco Wholesale Corp. AmEx …

• Bank of America Corp. said its debit card purchase volumes totaled $71 billion in the third quarter, up 2.5% from $69.3 billion a year earlier. U.S. credit card purchase volume increased 2% to $57.6 billion. BofA said it now has 21.3 million mobile-banking users, a 15.8% increase from 18.4 …