Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

• Starbucks Corp. said JPMorgan Chase & Co. by year’s end will issue a Visa-branded Starbucks reloadable prepaid card that will allow cardholders to earn Starbucks “stars,” or loyalty points, for purchases just about anywhere Visa is accepted; the new card is an extension of Starbucks’ relationship with JPMorgan Chase’s …

By John Stewart   These days, the airline and air-travel industry finds itself squeezed between two imperatives that have come into sharp focus in recent months. With high average tickets, airlines must guard against fraud at a time when the spread of EMV chip cards is pushing more criminals into …

By Eugene Rome   Merchant-service providers of all shapes and sizes learn the hard way that cutting corners by using cut-and-paste tactics to create a merchant agreement can end up in costly litigation. Independent sales organizations, third-party processors, and payment facilitators must have a merchant agreement that is tailored to …

Checkout abandonment, particularly on smart phones, remains high, suppressing transaction volumes and prompting new payment options to enable a faster, smoother process when consumers are ready to buy. BlueSnap Inc., a Waltham, Mass.-based gateway, announced Tuesday an update to its Powered Buy Platform that aims to improve mobile and e-commerce …

Online and mobile-authentication technology provider Jumio Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection and put itself up for sale Monday, but the Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm expects to live on thanks to support from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Saverin, an early equity investor who has injected at least $23 million into Jumio …

While the U.S. market wrestles with its nearly 6-month-long transition to EMV chip cards and contactless payments based on near-field communication (NFC) technology, the rest of the world is surging ahead with contactless, online, and mobile transactions, according to the latest report from Juniper Research. Total digital payments worldwide will …

With President Obama in the midst of a historic trip to Cuba Monday, payments companies ranging from Stripe to PayPal to Western Union are eyeing new transaction growth as relations thaw between the U.S. and the island nation just 105 miles from Florida. Online payments provider Stripe Inc. announced that …

• NCR Corp. says its Epsilon payments application received EMV certification from First Data Corp., enabling the app to process credit and debit EMV transactions in its Radiant POS and StorePoint POS products. • Former Merchant Customer Exchange LLC chief executive Dekkers L. Davidson joined the InStream Inc. board of directors. …

Independent software vendors, value-added resellers, and point-of-sale software developers facing the daunting task of certifying their unique products for EMV payment acceptance may face costs starting at $30,000. That figure, which comes from Andrey Tikhonov, senior director of payment technology at Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based Infinite Peripherals Inc., reflects the …

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, author of 2010’s controversial Durbin Amendment, wants to know about the inner workings of EMVCo, the chip card standards body owned by the six largest global payment card networks. A statement Thursday from the Illinois Democrat says Durbin is “seeking information on whether the deployment of …

The prospect of leaving the house with just a smart phone in lieu of a wallet full of cash and payment cards is 14 years away, according to a survey released Thursday by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a technology association based in New York City. By …

Prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp. on Thursday announced a test with ride-sharing service Uber in which Uber drivers can be paid instantly via deposits into Green Dot’s subsidiary bank. Drivers for San Francisco-based Uber normally are paid once a week via direct deposit into financial accounts on file with …

Two mobile point-of-sale system providers are doing their part in the proliferation of such systems with the release of Click a Waiter Inc.’s white-label POS system and Aspex LLC’s deal with Frontier Airlines to provide an onboard POS system. Leominster, Mass.-based Click a Waiter Tuesday released a white-label version of …

First Data Corp. recently closed one office in Florida and plans to close a bigger one in New York next year, but the company still added 1,000 employees to its worldwide head count last year. Newsday, the newspaper of Long Island, N.Y., reported Tuesday that First Data filed a report …

  Most businesses thrive on referrals from existing clients, but acquirers and independent sales organizations get a surprisingly paltry number of referrals from the merchants they process for. In fact, fewer than 1% of merchants refer other merchants to their transaction servicer, even in the face of rewards such as …

• Dissident shareholder Harvest Capital Strategies LLC, owner of 7.8% of prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp., nominated three director candidates for election at Green Dot’s upcoming annual shareholder meeting. Green Dot issued a statement saying it had recently offered Harvest Capital the opportunity to appoint one director immediately and …

PayPal Holdings Inc.’s popular Venmo person-to-person payments service posted a review of the company’s anti-money-laundering and related security policies Sunday in the wake of transaction reviews triggered by certain keywords in Venmo messages that have slowed down the payments process. “There has been recent discussion around specific keywords associated with …

Its original Coinstar coin-counting business long overshadowed by its once-booming but now fading Redbox DVD and video-game rental business, Outerwall Inc. on Monday announced that it had hired investment banker Morgan Stanley & Co. “to explore strategic and financial alternatives” for Outerwall shareholders. The company simultaneously announced that would double …

• Merchant processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc. announced an integration of its Portico Gateway with Computop Paygate in an arrangement that will give Heartland merchants access to international payments. Heartland is set to be acquired this spring by Global Payments Inc. in a $4.3 billion cash-and-stock deal announced in December. …

• Visa Inc. unveiled a new interactive button for its Visa Checkout online and mobile commerce service that allows shoppers to complete an online purchase by sliding a virtual image of their credit, debit or prepaid card across the screen of a smart phone, tablet, or laptop. • Visa will have its …