Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

  It’s a sobering statistic. Only 28.6% of the companies surveyed in the Verizon 2015 PCI Compliance Report were still in compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard a year after a successful validation. Released Thursday, the annual report catalogs the state of PCI compliance gleaned from more than …

With the pressure on to secure the digital fortifications of payment data, security professionals say they need more money, more time, and more knowledgeable staff to defend their companies, according to a survey from data-security company Trustwave. In its 2015 Security Pressures Report, of the more than 1,000 security professionals …

Mobile point-of-sale company AnywhereCommerce will add near-field communications (NFC) payment capability to its mobile hardware in coming weeks, signaling a further shift along its path to becoming a cloud-based payments gateway. That’s the word from William Nichols, Anywhere Commerce’s chief executive. That strategy, implemented about six months ago when Nichols …

Merchants that have spent years battling card-acceptance fees are turning a jaundiced eye toward a proposal to speed up payments on the nation’s automated clearing house network. That’s because the same-day settlement proposal, floated in December by NACHA, the ACH’s rules-setting organization, contains a so-called interbank fee that, for some …

Point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc. continued to ride the U.S. EMV chip card wave in its first quarter of fiscal 2015 as sales of EMV-compliant payment card acceptance systems helped lift North American revenues by 31% to a quarterly record. The San Jose, Calif.-based company late Tuesday reported revenues …

By Jim Daly Another sign that the U.S. EMV conversion has a long way to go emerged last week when a survey of more than 990 independent business owners by Newtek Business Services Inc. revealed that 71% of respondents were unaware of the so-called EMV liability shift coming on Oct. …

Familiar is easier than unfamiliar. This basic truth explains much misspent effort in the payments world. Wallets are familiar. We all have them. So as it became clear that the physical part of payments—cash, checks, plastic cards—would at some point disappear, it was natural to carry the idea of a …

Apple Inc. chief executive Tim Cook said Monday that nearly 700,000 U.S. merchant locations now accept the Apple Pay mobile-payment service, compared with the 220,000 locations reported to have accepted the service when it launched last October. Since Apple Pay relies on near-field communication (NFC) contactless technology to enable Apple’s iPhone …

Payments and other financial-services executives have long complained about what they call patent trolls, typically individuals who gain a patent on what some regard as a longstanding business method and then sue practitioners for infringement. In some instances, these cases have succeeded in wringing large settlements out of banks and …

Online-commerce company Shopify Inc. has made its Shopify POS app free for its merchants and introduced an iPhone version of the payments service, the company recently announced. The app, which launched in 2013, includes a card reader. The new app replaces the Accept Payment option in Shopify Mobile, the Ottawa, Ontario-based company’s …

Ever since its launch, proponents of Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay mobile-payments service have touted the wallet’s high-tech security features, including tokenization of card credentials, a secure element in the phone locking down those credentials, and fingerprint authentication. But now, only four months after that much-heralded launch, banks that support Apple …

Some 12.7 million Americans fell victim to identity fraud last year, a big number but down 3% from 13.1 million in 2013, according to Javelin Strategy and Research’s latest annual ID-fraud study. Even better, estimated fraud losses fell 11% to $16 billion from $18 billion in 2013. While those decreases …

  Consumers holding credit cards issued by private-label card issuer Synchrony Financial and credit and debit cards issued by U.S. Bank will be able to use their cards with Samsung Pay, a mobile-payment service available this summer. Samsung Electronics Co. announced Samsung Pay Sunday. It can use either near-field communication …

When Apple Inc. launched its Apple Pay mobile-payments service in October, the computing giant hoped the new wallet would help sell smart phones and banks hoped it would help drive transactions on their cards. Now new research indicates both hopes are being realized, but the risk for financial institutions may …

  Consumers wielding multiple credit and debit cards in their wallets have yet another service to use to consolidate them into one electronic payment card. Stratos Inc. on Tuesday introduced its Stratos Bluetooth Connected Card that enables consumers to load multiple cards onto the electronic device. The card begins shipping …

By Jim Daly The big warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. announced Monday an agreement with Citigroup Inc. to replace its current cobranded card from American Express Co. next April with a Citi-issued Visa credit card. But Costco also announced a companion agreement with Visa Inc. under which other Visa-branded credit …

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is joining the mobile-wallet and payments fray with its expected launch this summer of Samsung Pay, a service that uses near-field communication (NFC) and technology from LoopPay Inc. it recently acquired. Samsung Pay, available on the coming Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smart phones this summer, could …

When it comes to general-purpose mobile payments, PayPal Inc. is far and away the leader, having posted $46 billion in mobile charge volume last year. But recently, the mobile-payments spotlight has been trained on Apple Inc. with its new Apple Pay service, Google Inc. and the suddenly brightening prospects for …

Visa Inc. on Friday reported that it had signed a definitive agreement to buy privately-held TrialPay Inc., provider of an offers platform that connects merchants with consumers through targeted promotions. Visa will integrate TrialPay into its portfolio of services for merchants beyond pure payment processing. Financial terms of the pending …

For years, merchants like Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. have streamlined online payments by letting consumers charge stored credit cards with a single click, using a technique called card on file. Now, a similar concept is coming to carrier billing, the payment method used by merchants to charge online purchases …