Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

By John Stewart It is a commonplace notion that unicorns are to be encountered only in myth. But in the world of venture capital, they are becoming increasingly numerous. While it was once considered extremely rare for a privately held startup to achieve a $1 billion-plus valuation, there are now …

By Jim Daly Some merchant categories such as restaurants are moving slowly into EMV chip card acceptance ahead of the looming Oct. 1 liability shift because they experience little of the fraud EMV cards are intended to prevent, while others are going to find losses “winging back at them,” executives …

Installations of mobile point-of-sale devices in the United States and Canada will hit 17.4 million in four years, forecasts 451 Research in its “Mobile Point of Sale: Smart Devices Earn a Growing Share of Global Payment Acceptance” report released Thursday. If it proves accurate, that forecast will yield a 155.9% …

By John Stewart After a three-year gestation period, the Merchant Customer Exchange’s CurrentC mobile-payment service is planning to launch a pilot in Columbus, Ohio, during the last week of August, a source with knowledge of the matter tells Digital Transactions News. The pilot will involve locations belonging to a handful …

Retail ATM network operator Cardtronics Inc. says it has been preparing for the possible loss of its biggest merchant, convenience-store giant 7-Eleven Inc., for three years and will stick to its established growth plan to fill the impending hole now that that possibility has become a reality. Houston-based Cardtronics has …

By Jim Daly First Data Corp. on Wednesday reported modest second-quarter growth in its merchant-acquiring and issuer-processing segments thanks in part to the U.S. conversion to EMV chip card payments and reduced expense growth. In all, First Data reported a net loss of $26 million, a 24% improvement from the …

By John Stewart and Jim Daly With products like its MasterPass digital wallet, MasterCard Inc. has stepped up its efforts to stake a claim in the emerging market for digital payments. But the company is loath to commit itself too soon to any particular technology, according to the card network’s …

By Jim Daly Citing what they say were improper communications between two lawyers on opposing sides of a $5.7 billion settlement between merchants and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., attorneys for a group of about 30 merchants gave notice to the networks Tuesday that they want to have the settlement …

Nine months after its launch, Apple Pay appears to be steadily establishing itself as an everyday service for consumers wielding iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smart phones. These users are increasing the frequency of their Apple Pay transactions as more consumers adopt the Apple Inc. device. That’s the summary of …

By Nicole Chan When Apple Pay first entered the digital-wallet scene, consumer interest in the technology increased. Now the question is, will digital-wallet payments become universal? The short answer is yes. The three reasons below expand on why. Reason #1: The technology exists. Rarely has the developed world made a …

Payments behemoth Visa Inc. has poured some cash into Stripe, an independent online-payments startup, which will be used to aid Stripe’s international expansion. The specific Visa investment was not disclosed. But adding in investments from Sequoia Capital and American Express Co. that were made alongside the one from Visa, Stripe …

Square Inc.’s future may include public ownership if reports late last week that it filed for a confidential initial public offering are correct. Both BloombergBusiness and The Wall Street Journal reported the filing, permitted under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which enables companies with less than $1 billion …

What will it take to get small businesses to accept EMV payment cards? Apparently $50 in fraud charges will motivate 32% of them to install EMV-capable point-of-sale terminals. That’s the finding from a survey released Thursday by Cayan, a Boston-based payments company. While 32% said $50 when asked what amount …

By John Stewart Five years after it became the law of the land, the Durbin Amendment remains as controversial as it was then, with virtually no agreement in sight on such questions as whether merchants have cut prices in response to interchange savings or whether consumers have paid more for …

A federal judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order in favor of online classified-advertising portal Backpage.com, which challenged Cook County, Ill., Sheriff Thomas Dart after Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. granted Dart’s request to ban card payments on Backpage because the site allegedly facilitates the sex trade. A spokesperson …

By Jim Daly and Kevin Woodward American Express Co. saw total revenues and profits decline by 4% in the second quarter, but its OptBlue program has added 700,000 small merchants this year. Meanwhile, Discover Financial Services reported late Wednesday that its Pulse volume fell after losing a large issuer. New …

Tokenization is not a new concept. Yet, while the process has improved card security across a variety of industries, there still exists myriad misinformation about why it’s important and how to best implement it. I’m going to argue that an approach called host card emulation (HCE) is the safest and …

A tepid world economy didn’t stop Visa Inc. from posting an 8% increase in global transaction volume and a 25% jump in net income for the quarter ended June 30. The leading payment card network on Thursday reported operating revenues of $3.52 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2015, …

Prepaid provider InComm Holdings Inc. and smart card maker Gemalto NV have devised a new service that enables mobile-wallet providers and merchants to offer and accept prepaid cards loaded onto near-field communication (NFC)-equipped smart phones. The InComm Mobile Platform uses Gemalto’s technology—namely its Trusted Service Hub for the interconnectivity, data …

  Only 42% of consumers would consider or have already bought wearable technology. That’s one result from a Bank of America Corp. survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults. Wearables garner much attention because of their mobile-payments capabilities. These devices—mostly watches—enable consumers to make mobile payments without using a smart …