Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

• Prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp. reported that second-quarter net income more than doubled from a year earlier to $7.78 million on a 2% increase in operating revenues to $173.5 million. While Green Dot’s active card count of 4.28 million was down 11% from a year earlier, purchase volume …

  Sage Payment Solutions has launched the Sage Payments Developer Portal, an enterprise-level API developer enablement solution. As a collaborative resource, the Sage Developer Portal is the go-to platform that helps ISV and developers quickly integrate payments into their software, mobile application or website. Designed with the needs of software …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Consumers using near-field communication (NFC)-enabled payment cards and smart phones enabled with mobile wallets soon will be able to use them to pay for transit rides operated by the Miami-Dade County’s Department of Transportation and Public Works, Cubic Corp. recently announced. The contract is valued at $33 …

• The Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index found that checks, at 90%, and cash, at 72%, continue to reign as the top payment methods accepted by small businesses. A printed check from a bill-pay service was next, at 53%, followed by credit or debit card at a point-of-sale terminal, 42%, …

Implementing so-called chip-and-PIN authentication for U.S. credit cards would cost merchants and card issuers more than $7 billion but prevent only about $850 million in lost-and-stolen card fraud over five years, a new report from Aite Group LLC says. The report, “Chip Cards in the United States: The PIN, PINless, …

• Processor Fiserv Inc. will market Early Warning LLC’s clearXchange person-to-person real-time payments network to its financial-institution clients under a new agreement. The deal follows a similar arrangement the companies reached last year for real-time bill payments and deposits. Fiserv also said adjusted second-quarter revenues in its payments segment increased nearly 11% …

Card-brand efforts to improve consumers’ perceptions of EMV transaction speeds took a step ahead this week when a grocer debuted updated EMV software on its point-of-sale systems. New Seasons Markets, including its New Leaf Community Markets unit, is now using the Quick Chip and M/Chip Fast technologies from Visa Inc. …

By Jim Daly @DTPaymentNews Square Inc. reported Wednesday that its payment volume grew 42% in the second quarter to $12.5 billion, and, while still reporting a loss, the merchant processor edged toward profitability as its adjusted revenues jumped 54%. Square, which began signing merchants in 2010, also raised its financial …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Early Warning Services LLC announced Tuesday that both Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are now part of its clearXchange peer-to-peer network. The addition of the two largest card brands means customers of participating financial institutions will be able to send money to others using a U.S.-issued debit …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews A relatively new program geared at shoring up data security at small merchants is making progress toward a crucial January deadline, but not without some full-throated grumbling, if comments and questions at an industry trade show this week in Grapevine, Texas, were any indication. The program, …

• International Business Machines Corp. reportedly is in early talks to acquire iPad-based point-of-sale technology provider Revel Systems Inc., according to Bloomberg. • Investment firm Battery Ventures said it reached an agreement to acquire Bluepoint Solutions Inc., a privately-owned image-capture and document-management firm, and will merge it with Alogent, a …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Criminals stepped up their attacks on e-commerce sites in the second quarter, producing more than 69 million rejected transactions, a stunning 90% increase from the same quarter a year ago, according to the Q2 2016 Cybercrime report recently released by ThreatMetrix. Of these transactions, 23% were payments, …

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Most of First Data Corp.’s cylinders fired on cue in the second quarter, but its U.S. small and mid-size business customers again proved to be drag on revenue growth. In response, the giant payment processor is holding off on merchant price increases and ramping up service, its top brass …

• FinTech Acquisition Corp. announced it has completed its acquisition of processor CardConnect LLC, which has become a wholly owned subsidiary. Renamed CardConnect Corp., the company began trading Monday on the NASDAQ under the symbol “CCN.” • Epson America Inc. launched the Envision mSelect Partner program to help mobile point-of-sale …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Most mobile wallets in North America have struggled to win adoption and usage among consumers, and some apps backed by mobile networks have already fallen by the wayside. But one factor that could promote mobile payments is likely to come from a surprising source: restaurants. With …

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It might be a cliché, but the saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same has some validity for merchant acquirers despite the rapid introduction of new technologies and the entrance of new competitors in recent years. For example, the top 10 U.S. merchant acquirers in …

• For its second quarter ended June 30, MoneyGram International Inc. reported transactions on its digital money transfer service grew 9% and accounted for 15% of all money-transfer transactions handled by the company. Revenue for the service increased 17% and accounted for 13% of overall money-transfer revenue. • Because of …

The shock waves generated by Visa Inc.’s new deal with PayPal Holdings Inc. reached MasterCard Inc. on Thursday, with chief executive Ajay Banga hailing the agreement while parrying questions from analysts about its possible effect on a fee MasterCard imposed in 2013 to deal with PayPal and other digital wallets that rely on …

The $4.3 billion merger of Global Payments Inc. and Heartland Payment Systems Inc. appears to be paying off. Atlanta-based Global Payments released its fiscal fourth-quarter and year-end results Thursday. For the year, which ended May 31, total revenue of $2.9 billion was up 4.5% from $2.8 billion in the prior year. …