Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The prominent, slightly self-effacing graphic on discount grocery-store chain Aldi Inc.’s home page says it all: “OMG! We FINALLY Accept Credit Cards!” Indeed, Batavia, Ill.-based Aldi is believed to be the last major grocery holdout in accepting general purpose credit cards, which typically cost merchants more to accept than the …

This year brings a lot of opportunity for small and medium businesses (SMBs). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects world economic growth for 2016 to be somewhere around 3.6 percent – higher than the predicted 2015 growth of 3.1 percent. Unfortunately, amidst this positive backdrop lurks the negative threat posed …

    The European Commission and the US agreed on a new framework (EU-US Privacy Shield) for the transatlantic flow of data on the 2nd February 2016. So, what brought us to this point and what does it really mean for EU merchants? The so-called “Safe Harbor” agreement was made …

The role of EMV in pushing tap-and-pay solutions is well known, but research released on Tuesday indicates the brand value of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. can’t be underestimated. At the same time, a cloud-based technology called host card emulation is also playing a role in spreading contactless …

Cash, it seems, remains king, especially among younger consumers who want to use person-to-person payments. Of the 1,000 18-to-34-year-old U.S. consumers surveyed, 58% prefer cash for their P2P payments, says GoBankingRates.com, a financial-services site that conducted the online survey in January. The popularity of cash, even among Millennials, for P2P …

Merchant acquirers are reporting more chargebacks now that the U.S. conversion to the EMV chip card standard is underway, but chargeback exposure varies widely by acquirer. And, so far at least, relatively few of the chargebacks are translating into actual financial losses. That’s the word from First Annapolis Consulting Inc., …

The cessation of the cobranded Costco Wholesale Corp. credit card issued by American Express Co. moved another step closer with Monday’s announcement that Citigroup will buy the AmEx Costco portfolio for an unspecified sum. Citi’s acquisition of the portfolio is expected to close this summer. That’s when Citi will begin to …

The first chapter in the U.S. conversion to the EMV chip card standard is not even complete, but a leading payment card manufacturer sees growing interest in the next chapter, one that could be centered on so-called dual-interface cards that enable contact and contactless transactions. The vast majority of U.S. …

  The October 1, 2015 deadline for EMV compliance has come and gone, yet many U.S. merchants have not yet upgraded to EMV terminals and cannot accept NFC payments like Apple Pay™. As the industry upgrades to new, user-friendly and secure technologies, sales partners find themselves in a great situation …

Many consumers will find it easier to make onboard entertainment purchases when flying on Southwest Airlines Inc. now that the airline is accepting Pay with Amazon. Announced Wednesday, the service enables Southwest passengers who have stored payment data in their Amazon.com Inc. accounts to pay with those credentials. To pay for …

Canada’s Interac Association PIN-based debit card network once again is reporting lower fraud losses as the country’s conversion to the EMV chip card standard nears completion. The Toronto-based network said Thursday that fraud losses from skimming, in which card data are stolen from the magnetic stripe, to financial institutions that …

Ingo Money Inc. this week introduced a feature on its 3-year-old mobile app that allows users to split check deposits across multiple accounts, including bank accounts, prepaid cards, bill payments, and PayPal. Using Ingo’s decision engine and bank integrations, the feature also offers immediate, guaranteed funds availability. The feature works …

HalCash North America is making its cardless-cash ATM service available in four U.S. cities prior to eventual national expansion later this year. Under the Pin4 moniker, the HalCash North America service enables consumers to securely send cash that recipients can retrieve at participating ATMs without having to insert a card …

Green Dot Corp. announced a number of a new products Wednesday and said it was getting into lending in order to generate new revenues and expand beyond its prepaid card base. Under pressure from a large investor to boost its bottom line and flagging stock price, Pasadena, Calif.-based Green Dot reported …

Ever since MasterCard Inc. introduced its tokenization platform nearly 18 months ago, no third party has been allowed to offer the product, called the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service. That changed Tuesday with the company’s announcement that Giesecke & Devrient is connecting its Convego CloudPay platform to MDES and will be …

When JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its own mobile wallet, Chase Pay, in October, it said the new payments service would begin rolling out by the middle of this year, and on Tuesday the money-center bank announced an important step in that direction. The fledgling service, which is up against …

Payments made via so-called wearables are forecast to soar in the years to come, so Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are positioning themselves to cash in with announcements made Monday at the huge Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. MasterCard unveiled a partnership with WiseKey, a Swiss company whose security …

A new Tennessee law governing merchants’ payment card contracts could create headaches for non-bank entities such as independent sales organizations and payment facilitators, merchant-acquiring industry sources say. The law will require processors on a monthly basis to list all fees assessed since the last statement. That’s certainly not unusual in …

Powa Technologies Ltd., the troubled startup behind PowaTag and the PowaPOS line of mobile point-of-sale gear, is being acquired by Thompson Investments, according to a terse announcement released late Friday. No terms were released. Before Thompson stepped in, London-based Powa Technologies had been reported to be close to appointing management consultancy …

With an eye to giving credit and debit card holders a measure of greater control, MasterCard Inc. unveiled a new alert feature that provides issuers with verifiable data about a cardholder’s location. That can help prevent authorization refusals, for example, when the cardholder travels. Available now in the United Kingdom, and …