Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Real-time payments have existed in various models for a long time. In fact, they’re probably most familiar to consumers as card payments, something that has been embedded in consumer culture for decades. However, in the United States, the development of real-time payments has lagged behind some areas of the world, a …

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday joined the mobile-payments race in earnest by announcing it is making near-field communication capability available on Microsoft Wallet for in-store transactions. The wallet works with Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system. The new payments feature is limited for now to members of Microsoft’s Windows Insiders program “in …

• By the end of August American Express Co. will not hold merchants liable for counterfeit fraud chargebacks for transactions under $25 as part of its updated U.S. fraud policies for EMV chargebacks. By the end of 2016, AmEx plans to limit the number of counterfeit fraud chargebacks to 10 …

The number of consumers of all age groups who would or already use their phones to make purchases at the checkout increased to 40% this year, finds Bank of America Corp.’s “Trends in Consumer Mobility Report 2016,” released Tuesday. That’s up from 34% in 2015. Younger consumers—Millennials between 18 and …

MintChip, a digital cash replacement, went live Tuesday with a handful of retailers and restaurants in a trendy Toronto neighborhood. Canadians anywhere also can use MintChip for peer-to-peer payments. A loyalty and payment-services startup called nanoPay Corp. bought MintChip, which was developed by the Royal Canadian Mint, early this year. …

• Banking and financial-services provider BNY Mellon announced its Treasury Services unit has introduced Tokenized Payments, a service that allows its clients to send real-time or next-day payments to consumers. The service relies on Early Warning Services LLC’s clearXchange network and allows payments using the recipient’s email address or mobile …

There may be less ATM skimming going on than is commonly thought. Most ATMs placed in retail locations—93%—have not experienced a skimming incident, finds a survey from the National ATM Council Inc., which represents independent ATM operators. Skimming happens when a consumer inserts a credit or debit card into what …

MasterCard Inc. on Monday is releasing a new policy aimed at speeding the testing and certification of EMV chip card terminals at U.S. merchant locations. The policy change, which the Purchase, N.Y.-based network says will cut test time to a few hours from as much as a couple of weeks, …

•  Costco Wholesale Corp., along with Citigroup Inc. and Visa Inc., officially announced the new Citi-issued Costco Anywhere Visa consumer and business credit cards to replace Costco’s American Express Co. cobranded card; the new card gives 4% cash back on gas purchases, 3% back on restaurant and eligible travel purchases, …

Creating lifetime, brand-loyal customers who return to your online store with what we call “surprise and delight” is not as easy as it once was. The fact is, shoppers are not created equal. Some online shoppers are deal seekers. Hopping from site to site, these shoppers are easily lured away …

One of the biggest changeovers in the history of general-purpose credit cards is set for this weekend when warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. stops accepting American Express Co. cards and begins taking Visa Inc. cards. In an email to its customer-members this week, Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco said to “mark your …

• Noting that U.S. businesses send consumers write 3 billion paper checks annually, Wells Fargo & Co. said it will allow companies to send consumer payments electronically through a new service called Payment Manager B2P, expected to roll out early next year. The service will work with the clearXchange peer-to-peer …

Even the most fervent advocate of EMV would have to admit the U.S conversion to chip cards has been a rocky one, especially for merchants. On Thursday, Visa Inc. announced a four-part plan it clearly hopes will remedy at least some of the more acute headaches, including certification backlogs and …

• Visa Inc.’s Canadian unit posted an “open letter” in Canadian newspapers Thursday to protest Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s plan to stop accepting Visa cards in its 400 Canadian stores beginning July 18 because of allegedly high acceptance costs. “Wal-Mart has initiated a public flight—something we never wanted—as they are using …

American Express Co. made available Wednesday the AmEx Quick Chip program that enables a seemingly speedier EMV chip card transaction. Similar to what MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. recently announced, the AmEx program enables consumers to remove their AmEx chip cards from readers once the card has been verified instead …

The Home Depot Inc.’s new lawsuit against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. makes many of the same antitrust allegations that other merchants have lodged against the big networks in recent years. The suit, however, is notable for asking the court to quash Visa’s Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) and, like …

• The Home Depot Inc. filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. for alleged lax security practices and a preference for higher-margin signature authentication with EMV chip credit cards over more secure PIN authentication, according to the Associated Press. A MasterCard spokesperson told the AP that …

Visa Inc. on Tuesday reported that gas stations using a service it introduced two years ago to prevent card fraud at fuel pumps has reduced counterfeit fraud by 54%. Visa says that more than 35,000 U.S. gas stations now use its Visa Transaction Advisor technology at the pump, and that …

Long-time payments players who like to scoff at Bitcoin as an unproven payments instrument will have to reckon with the robust vote of confidence buyers and sellers of the 7-year-old digital currency have given it over the past few days. Bitcoin’s U.S. dollar value breached the $700 level late Sunday …