Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

While a seemingly unending rash of data breaches has payments players scrambling to adopt a panoply of fraud-fighting technologies, little attention has been focused on the consequences for issuers and merchants when cardholders are wrongly turned down at the point of sale because of fraud suspicions. It’s a big problem—bigger …

Electronic gift cards are becoming more popular with consumers, and potentially creating more sales at retailers, finds a new survey from Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. That will likely mean competition for consumers will heat up as merchants and processors look to cash in. Mercator Advisory Group, which follows the gift …

Payment processor First Data Corp. on Tuesday named a big cast of underwriters for its planned initial public offering of stock. Meanwhile, a German processor reportedly is joining private-equity firms in making a play for United Kingdom-based Worldpay Ltd., which is one of the world’s largest merchant acquirers and has …

With all the attention being given to the upcoming EMV liability-shift deadline on Oct. 1 in the United States, one important issue is getting overlooked. That’s the effect new chip cards and EMV software and equipment will have on the customer experience. According to a recent report on EMV from …

By John Stewart Larger screens, buy buttons, and streamlined checkouts are expected to combine to raise the profile of smart phones in e-commerce. And now there are numbers to show just how much retail sales volume the devices will generate. Smart phones will account for $27.7 billion in retail mobile …

Atlanta-based merchant processor Global Payments Inc. will use mobile point-of-sale apps from Apriva Inc. to service its merchants wanting EMV-capable mPOS, Apriva announced Tuesday. The deal sees the AprivaPay Plus app, available for iOS and Android devices, branded with the Global Payments name. Such branded, or white-labeled, agreements enable companies …

As the Oct. 1 EMV liability-shift date nears, and consumers begin receiving even more credit and debit cards bearing EMV chips, educating them and merchants on how the cards are used takes on even greater importance. Just last week, Target Corp. introduced a video and a series of questions-and-answers explaining …

Publicly traded payments companies fared slightly worse than the major market indexes Monday in a continuation of a Wall Street selloff triggered by investor worries about China’s economic situation, overvaluation of securities, and the future of U.S. interest rates. Fifty companies tracked by Digital Transactions News fell 4.03% from Friday’s …

A significant chunk—44%—of small-business owners have no knowledge of the EMV liability shift coming Oct. 1. That finding from “Small Business EMV Readiness,” a report released by Javelin Strategy & Research this week, suggests that many might be in for a shock when their merchant-processing statements arrive in November and …

While many payments firms have complained about the expensive and time-consuming process of getting state money-transmitter licenses, and, more recently, of potentially needing licenses to operate virtual currencies, the regulatory pendulum occasionally swings the other way. Late last month, Illinois quietly dropped a 2013 cease-and-desist order against merchant processor Square …

By John Stewart Why won’t Verizon Wireless make nice with Samsung Pay? With the U.S. debut of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s mobile-payments service just a few days away—and a national launch of Samsung Pay due Sept. 28—all the major mobile network operators have signed on to support the service with …

By John Stewart Evidence emerged this week that the Durbin Amendment may not be cutting debit card acceptance costs for merchants as effectively as its backers intended. Nor has it prompted many merchants to pass on their savings to consumers, according to a paper published in Economic Quarterly, a publication …

The transition to an EMV-based payment card system in the United States could spur a long and sophisticated series of criminal attacks designed to separate consumers and banks from their funds. That’s one possible consequence, says Michael Bruemmer, vice president at Experian Information Solutions Inc.’s Data Breach Resolution group. “Cyber …

American Express Co. is offering new rewards and benefits for using one of its prepaid cards, but at a cost. The card brand and acquirer on Wednesday added a rewards program to its Serve card under the “Serve Cash Back” moniker. Serve Cash Back users, who pay $5.95 per month …

Visa Inc. has struck a settlement with Target Corp. that would reimburse Visa’s credit and debit card issuers up to $67 million for their expenses related to Target’s massive data breach in late 2013. Meanwhile, hackers who stole data from the Ashley Madison Web site have posted seven years of …

The debut of Samsung Pay in the United States is just a month away, but the ongoing migration of U.S. credit and debit cards to the EMV chip standard may already be eroding the nascent mobile-payment service’s unique advantage. Samsung Pay uses near-field communication (NFC) and, uniquely, a radio-frequency version …

The increasing penetration of digital payments worldwide is helping drive conversion of point-of-sale terminals, vending machines, and parking meters from standalone devices to connected machines, according to a report released Tuesday by Berg Insight, a Gothenberg, Sweden-based research firm that follows the wireless market. Worldwide, Berg forecasts the number of …

By John Stewart Just 45 days to go until the Oct. 1 deadline for EMV in the United States, and among the issues over which merchants are still wrangling with banks is whether EMV chip cards should be universally issued with PINs—credit cards as well as debit. Merchant groups have …

Many news accounts of PayPal Holdings Inc.’s spinoff from parent company eBay Inc. noted that PayPal’s market capitalization was in the $50 billion range, but few provided context on where that placed the company among its publicly traded peers. Turns out, PayPal instantly became the fourth-largest payments player, trailing only …

By John Stewart A new service from Square Inc. that accelerates merchants’ access to their funds in return for a 1% fee is likely to gain popularity among the small sellers that primarily use Square for transaction processing, according to some observers. That may hand Square a key advantage in …