Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

A panel of two bankers and a banking-services provider gave an upbeat appraisal Monday of industry moves toward real-time payments, but indicated financial institutions still have a long way to go to serve customer demand and meet competitive thrusts from non-bank players. “We’ve got more work to do,” said Roy …

By Jim Daly The Canadian government’s move last week to strengthen its Code of Conduct for the payment card industry and the European Union’s approval in March of rock-bottom interchange rates for credit and debit cards has observers wondering if more regulation is in store for the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry. …

Retailers will take their time upgrading their point-of-sale systems for compatibility with the EMV chip card standards, finds EKN Research’s “2015 Retail Point-of-Sale Blueprint” report. Only a minority of retailers—mostly the largest ones—will be ready by Oct. 1, though within two years 70% of them will be ready for the …

By Jim Daly Coming off a winter of discontent, American Express Co. late Thursday reported some respectable financial results for the first quarter. The loss of its relationships with Costco Wholesale Corp. in Canada, however, affected charge volumes, a prelude to the loss of Costco as a merchant acceptor and …

Apple Inc. and American Express Co. may be catching a wave. Users of wearable technology like fitness bands and smart watches—the kind of gadgets AmEx and Apple are mixing with payments and financial services—are not only younger and wealthier than owners of smart phones and tablets, they’re also more likely …

By Jim Daly Continuing its effort to get a massive data breach behind it, discount retailer Target Corp. announced Wednesday a $19 million settlement with MasterCard Inc. to compensate banks and credit unions for the fraud and card-reissuance costs they incurred for their MasterCard-branded credit and debit cards affected by …

On the heels of healthy quarterly growth, NACHA reported Thursday that the automated clearing house network handled nearly 23 billion electronic transactions in 2014, up by 1 billion payments, or nearly 5%, from 2013. Dollar volume was up more than 3%, to more than $40 trillion. These overall volume numbers …

The newest market for payments may one day lie inside a more than 100-year-old machine: the car. Just as payments is evolving to incorporate watches and fitness trackers, so too are futurists looking at how payments might make the move to cars. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Information Services Inc. is …

  Criminals have developed a new family of point-of-sale malware that hides in plain sight, riding along with core processes inside Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, says Chicago-based Trustwave Holdings Inc., which uncovered the malware during a recent U.S. Secret Service investigation. Dubbed “Punkey” because of the “unkey” command within its …

By Jim Daly A new mobile app from an Atlanta startup that uses remote-capture software provider Mitek Systems Inc.’s imaging technology aims to have workers automatically time the payment of routine bills with their pay days, thereby helping consumers escape the pitfalls of living paycheck to paycheck. “That’s exactly what …

All things considered, the holidays were kind to the ACH. Transactions on the automated clearing house network grew 4.7% in the final three months of 2014 compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, while dollar volume moved by the network climbed 4.9%, according to statistics from NACHA, the governing body …

By Jim Daly Canada’s Finance Minister, Joe Oliver, on Monday issued an update to the government’s 5-year-old Code of Conduct for the credit and debit card industry. The update adds consumer protections, addresses the growth of mobile payments and premium cards, and makes other changes intended to give merchants more …

Independent sales organization CoCard Anderson and bill-payment software company Systems East Inc. are targeting insurance, government, and utilities merchants in a new program announced Tuesday. Merchant processing is not as widely adopted in these merchant categories as in retail, making them attractive prospects, CoCard says. In the deal, Systems East, …

Bitcoin had a rough first quarter, leaving open questions about its ability to break into the mainstream of global payments. But that didn’t stop investment cash, which poured into startups supporting the digital currency at a record rate. That’s according to a quarterly report released Friday by Coindesk Research, which …

By Jim Daly PayPal Inc. says the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might sue it over its credit products by June 30. The possible lawsuit would stem from an investigation dating to 2013, when the CFPB in August of that year filed so-called civil investigative demands (CIDs) for documents, testimony …

Up against determined competition from big technology companies, financial institutions have always reassured themselves that they still have an edge in payments when it comes to consumer trust. Now, that edge appears to be eroding fast. On the question of consumer trust, banks and financial institutions are losing ground to …

White Lodging Services Corp., an independent hotel-management firm, this week announced a “suspected breach” of the point-of-sale systems for the food and beverage operations in 10 hotels it manages. This incident follows a breach of the POS systems at the food and beverage locations in 14 White Lodging-managed hotels in …

Debit-rewards programs offered by banks appear to be rebounding a little, with younger consumers more motivated than other age groups to use them. That’s according to a new report from payments-research firm Mercator Advisory Group Inc. Debit rewards programs fell out of favor with banks following passage of the Durbin …

Facing increasing competition from digital money-transfer upstarts, wire-service giant Western Union Co. is making alliances to add value to its traditional money-movement product. This week, it announced a deal with Skype, the video-calling service, which allows Skype users to top up their accounts by handing over cash at Western Union …

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau named four merchant-acquiring companies as defendants in a lawsuit against six people and their associated debt-collection companies that allegedly attempted to collect millions of dollars in so-called “phantom debts” from consumers that the consumers either did not owe or were not owed to the debt …