Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

By October, 80% of the approximately 8 million credit cards issued by USAA Bank will bear an EMV chip, furthering the payment card industry’s efforts to migrate from magnetic-stripe cards. Meanwhile, the bank, a unit of USAA, a diversified insurance and banking company based in San Antonio, Texas, is still …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. reported Tuesday that charge volume in its massive merchant-processing business grew 12% in the second quarter, and Wells Fargo & Co. said its merchant-related fee income rose 10%. New York City-based JPMorgan Chase said payment volume in its Chase Commerce Solutions unit totaled $234.1 billion versus $209 …

First Data Corp. has added another digital gift card company to its portfolio with the purchase announced Tuesday of Transaction Wireless Inc., a digital gift card distribution company. The purchase of San Diego-based Transaction Wireless complements First Data’s 2014 deal to buy Gyft, a digital platform that enables consumers buy, …

The United States appears to be making steady progress in its conversion to the EMV chip card standard. Some 120 million chip cards were issued by the end of last year, a figure expected to balloon to 600 million by the end of 2015, according to the EMV Migration Forum, …

The price of Bitcoin, which has languished under $300 for more than six months, briefly shot past that milestone over the weekend, only to close lower in trading later Sunday. The digital currency, which traded well over $600 a year ago before beginning a slide that saw it plunge below …

PayPal Inc.’s plans to include three payment technologies—magnetic stripe, contactless, and EMV—in its upcoming mobile point-of-sale device could help the payments company capitalize on growing interest in mobile wallets. Many companies are betting on mobile wallets. But part of the ante is ensuring consumers can use their stored credit and …

A bill introduced Thursday with bipartisan backing in the U.S. Senate would prevent federal regulators from cracking down on banks that provide financial services to legal marijuana businesses. The bill, similar to one pending in the House of Representatives, aims to rectify the lack of access many recreational and medicinal …

By John Stewart When the Internet, and then mobile and cloud-based technology, began to radically change the acquiring business, some independent sales organizations thought they could adapt by becoming software companies without changing the way they do business. They were wrong, and that mistake is costing them dearly, argues Rick …

By John Stewart With Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. making headway with online merchants with their streamlined checkout services, it was only a matter of time before network rivals introduced their own versions. American Express Co. did just that Thursday, announcing what it is calling an “unwallet” to allow its …

By Jim Daly Next week’s planned split of PayPal from parent company eBay Inc. has payments investors anticipating that plenty of locked-up value and growth opportunities will be released for the online payments leader. PayPal began trading on a so-called “when-issued” basis Monday on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the …

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday issued nine guidelines summarizing its vision for faster payments as banks, payment processors, tech companies, and other government regulators continue work on proposals for improving U.S. payments. “Companies developing new financial technologies should be building systems from the outset with consumer protections …

Smart phones continue to dominate mobile payments made by consumers, garnering 64.1% of all such mobile transactions in the second quarter of 2015, reports the Adyen Mobile Payments Index. That’s an increase from 61.8% in the first quarter, and handily bests mobile transactions made with tablets. The use of tablets …

By Jim Daly Retail ATM network owner and manager Cardtronics Inc. reported Tuesday morning that its biggest merchant customer, Dallas-based 7-Eleven Inc., picked a corporate affiliate to run its U.S. ATM fleet when the leading convenience-store chain’s 10-year placement contract with Cardtronics expires in July 2017. 7-Eleven accounted for 17.5% …

Credit card use, even in merchant categories dominated by debit cards, appears to be growing quicker than debit card use, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in a whitepaper released Monday. The report finds that, from 2007 through 2012, credit cards’ share of payments increased 5% at gas stations …

Retailers, especially larger ones, face a contradiction: they know they need to update their point-of-sale systems to take advantage of new technologies and consumer-shopping behavior, yet most resist that urge because of the expense. That’s one of the findings from “Commerce Convergence: Closing the Gap Between Online and In-Store,” a …

You may have heard the term, “friendly fraud.” It’s no surprise, then, that there’s nothing friendly about it. And it’s quickly becoming a major problem for merchants across the globe. Friendly fraud, also called friendly-fraud chargebacks or cyber-shoplifting, occurs when a customer makes a purchase online and then files a …

New data from Visa Europe indicate that while contactless payments are still a small portion of European card-based payments, they’re growing fast and likely far exceed the current level of U.S. contactless payments. London-based Visa Europe, a bank-owned licensee of Visa Inc., on Monday said there are 2.6 million contactless …

The PCI Security Standards Council this week updated its standards governing point-to-point data encryption (P2PE) and card-reading devices for the point of sale, ATMs, kiosks and mobile devices. One of the key changes in the new Version 2.0 of the P2PE standard will make it easier for security-solutions providers to …

With a little more marketing oomph behind it, the gift card market rebounded in 2014 after a down year in 2013, according to a report released Wednesday by Mercator Advisory Group. Virtual gift cards, a small but key segment of the market, held their own and may soon benefit from …

PayPal Inc. plans to buy online wire-transfer provider Xoom Corp. in an all-cash deal valued at $890 million, the companies announced late Wednesday. The planned acquisition comes less than three weeks before PayPal’s expected spin-off from eBay Inc. and will bring under PayPal’s wing a highly regarded rival in the …