Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

With fewer than 300,000 merchant locations ready for EMV chip card transactions—according to Visa Inc.—efforts to get merchants to upgrade to the more fraud-resistant point-of-sale terminals take on greater importance. For example, iPad-based POS system maker ShopKeep.com Inc. last week began offering merchants a free contactless reader that also accepts …

By Kevin Woodward Cardholders yearning to load their Discover Financial Services cards into Apple Pay have less than a week to wait. Discover announced Wednesday that its cards will work with Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay beginning Sept. 16, the same day Apple releases an updated version of its mobile operating …

Google Inc.’s latest foray into mobile payments made its way to the public Thursday when the technology giant announced the release of Android Pay. Available only on smart phones and tablets enabled for near-field communication (NFC) and using the KitKat4 or later operating system, Android Pay enables consumers to load …

American Express Co. soon will be accepted at Sam’s Club, the membership-club division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The new deal will open more than 650 warehouse stores with thousands of big-spending customers to AmEx, but it still will fall short of filling the big hole that the warehouse-club sector’s biggest …

By John Stewart Transactions on the automated clearing house network grew 5.4% in the second quarter, the second straight period of 5%-plus expansion for the 40-year-old system, which reaches virtually every financial institution in the country. That’s according to numbers reported by NACHA, the organization that regulates the ACH. The …

How much does it cost to acquire a merchant? On average, $693. That’s the word from Adil Consulting, an Omaha, Neb.-based firm specializing in merchant acquiring. That figure, as an average, is highly influenced by a number of variables, Adil Moussa, principal, tells Digital Transactions News. Banks, for example, have …

The conversion of U.S. general-purpose payment cards to the EMV chip card standard is providing windfalls for all sorts of card-industry vendors. A new example comes from the big plastic card manufacturer CPI Card Group Inc., which has filed for a possible initial public offering of stock. EMV cards accounted …

AcceptEmail Inc., an Amsterdam-based bill-payment company, is bringing its service to the United States, and has hired a former bill-payment executive to head its North American efforts. Demand for faster payments and the ability to make mobile bill payments aids AcceptEmail’s North American push, says Peter Kwakernaak, chief executive of …

Online-only retailer zulily Inc.’s decision to add Apple Pay as an in-app payment option is about making it easier for consumers to shop and pay on a small screen, the women’s and children’s clothing retailer says. The in-app variation of Apple Pay relies on the Touch ID sensor built into …

By Jim Daly With the much-heralded EMV liability shift now less than a month away, the United States could be likened to briskly walking, though hardly running, toward the finish line of full-fledged chip card payments. New figures provided by Visa Inc. to Digital Transactions News on Friday show that …

An unlikely panelist showed up Wednesday at the Fall 2015 Mobile Payments Conference in Chicago: country music singer and songwriter Rick Monroe, who urged his listeners to get down and get to work on apps that can help musicians sell songs and merchandise. “Mobile has become a way for artists …

With much of its international business under pressure because of the strong U.S. dollar and weak economies in many countries, VeriFone Systems Inc.’s North America region once again proved to be the point-of-sale hardware and payments software provider’s saving grace. Powered by the U.S. conversion to EMV chip card payments, …

By Kevin Woodward Klarna, a Sweden-based payments company that enables consumers to take 14 days to pay for online purchases, says its deal announced Tuesday with Overstock.com is the first of many it expects to make with e-commerce retailers this year. Retailer Overstock.com sells a broad range of merchandise, and …

When Dwolla Inc. in June eliminated its 25-cent transaction fee, it said it intended to make money by launching value-added services that would leverage the network technology it had created. On Wednesday, it launched the latest chapter in this plan with a white-label service that lets banks, businesses, and government …

  PayPal Holdings Inc. is jumping into the free personalized person-to-person payments game with the launch of PayPal.Me. Announced Tuesday, PayPal.Me enables consumers to create personalized permanent links to share with others. When clicked, the links then present a Web page for senders to select the amount and the payment …

By John Stewart Ever since Google Inc. announced its Android Pay mobile-payments service a little more than three months ago, the online search giant has been mum about when the service will be launched. But a Google executive on Tuesday hinted in a public forum that the launch is likely …

Growing consumer use of mobile devices like smart phones is making the devices more attractive to criminals trying to capture payments data. That’s the assessment from ThreatMetrix Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based data-security company, in its “Cybercrime Report: Q2 2015” report, which analyzed more than 75 million attacks that were …

A new update of a list detailing where public authorities have intervened in payment card merchant pricing and rules shows only one country, Malaysia, was added over the past year, but authorities took new regulatory measures in places on the predecessor list, particularly the European Union and the United States. …

By John Stewart PayPal Holdings Inc. and eBay Inc. went their separate ways just 45 days ago, but already the fallout from that split is beginning to make itself felt. EBay is telling sellers on its main online marketplaces that starting Sept. 27 it will stop supporting three electronic payment …

PayPal Holdings Inc. will eliminate volume-based price tiers and charge all of its small U.S. merchants 2.9% of the sale plus 30 cents per domestic transaction come Oct. 1, according to a notice the leading online-payments firm began sending to merchants Thursday. The 2.9%-plus-30-cents tier is the highest rate under …