Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

More consumers are satisfied using near-field communications (NFC) technology with their smart phones than express the same satisfaction using Quick Response codes, finds a survey by Strategy Analytics Inc., a Boston-based consulting firm. In the survey, commissioned by NFC advocate group NFC Forum, 76% of consumers said they were satisfied …

American Express Co. on Thursday disclosed that it will not renew its merchant-acceptance and cobranded credit card agreements with Costco Wholesale Corp. The card accounted for about $82 billion of AmEx’s worldwide charge volume last year. The possible loss of the warehouse club’s 16-year AmEx card program had been rumored …

Mobile point-of-sale systems have come a long way in a short time, but in one respect they may have grown up too fast. They may have outstripped the ability of merchants and merchant-service providers to provide the kind of constant and consistent support that’s necessary to keep the tablets humming. …

Payments security is the top concern of retailers in 2015, finds a Boston Retail Partners report. This comes as retailers contend with increased scrutiny of their data-protection practices and a sweeping transformation of the U.S. payment card system. In the survey of more than 500 retailers, 63% cited payment security …

Financial and marketing services company Mozido Inc. now is serving China through its acquisition of PayEase Corp., a China-based payment processor. Announced today, the acquisition makes Austin, Texas-based Mozido the owner of one of 22 licensed payment-processing companies in China. PayEase, which is headquarter in Beijing, provides in-app mobile payments, …

More than 90% of Americans still prefer to receive paper bills, but a strong majority of them pay electronically, according to findings released Monday from a survey sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General. The three-month study of customer records from a major East Coast utility …

Fudging the numbers about their merchants’ compliance with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) may be a common practice by merchant acquirers if findings from a new study about payment card data security are to be believed. The study by the Merchant Acquirers’ Committee, an association of more than …

Here’s a resolution that the payments industry should consider: Stop doubting market capabilities and start anticipating currents within the technological wave. With the unveiling of Apple Pay, naysayers are already coming out in full force. However, I’ve spent considerable time in the card-not-present environment, giving me a unique perspective on …

Leading payment processor First Data Corp. late Tuesday reported its first quarterly profit since being taken private in a $29 billion leveraged buyout by investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in 2007. Net income wasn’t big, $11.8 million, but it beat the $123.1 million loss Atlanta-based First Data reported …

Gasoline retailer Cumberland Farms, which operates nearly 600 stores in eight Northeastern states, is proving you don’t have to sell fancy coffee concoctions to generate impressive results with a mobile app. The program, which Cumberland calls SmartPay, enrolled 100,000 customers in the first 45 days after its 2013 launch—a response …

In spite of all the hoopla about burgeoning e-commerce and mobile-commerce activity, consumers still prefer to shop inside a store, finds the “Total Retail: Retailers and the Age of Disruption” report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP. Of the more than 1,000 U.S. consumers surveyed, only 27% said they shop online weekly. But, …

With the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card movement well under way in the U.S. market, a key standards body is training its sights on a technology many believe could combat the fraud EMV is expected to drive to the Web. By the end of this year, EMVCo plans to have a …

By Jim Daly In the opinion of Visa Inc.’s lawyers, the Pulse PIN-debit network’s antitrust suit against the leading payment card network shouldn’t even have a pulse because Pulse hasn’t shown it has been harmed. Meanwhile, Google Inc. and a number of merchants that individually sued Visa and MasterCard Inc. …

Leading retail ATM network owner Cardtronics Inc. has already found banks ready to put their brands on 40% of the Cardtronics ATMs that until recently bore the JPMorgan Chase & Co. brand, chief executive Steve Rathgaber told analysts Wednesday. Chase informed Houston-based Cardtronics about three months ago that it planned …

Orders for Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) smart cards rolled in for bank and payment processor Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) in the fourth quarter while rival Fiserv Inc. saw increases in its multi-faceted payments business. Jacksonville, Fla.-based FIS on Thursday reported $647.2 million in fourth-quarter revenues from its Payment Solutions Group …

Online-payments provider Braintree says 2014 was a banner year for the Chicago-based unit of PayPal Inc., with total transactions growing to 2.8 times the 2013 tally. In a blog post, chief executive Bill Ready also said that Braintree’s mobile transactions in the fourth quarter increased to four times the number …

With the payments industry working against an implementation deadline that’s less than eight months away, networks and issuers are looking more closely at just how ready cardholders are for Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards. The latest research from MasterCard Inc. indicates some 60% of consumers are now at least aware of …

Sixty-one percent of respondents to a recent ATM Industry Association survey said that 76% to 100% of the ATMs they operate will be ready for the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card liability shift that takes effect in October 2016, the trade group of ATM independent sales organizations and retail ATM operators …

  Despite all of the hype about mobile payments, consumer concerns about security, convenience and where they can use smart phones have yet to be addressed, finds a survey from The 451 Group. Of the more than 4,100 North American consumers polled in December, 84% cited security as the top …

In the relentless push toward compliance with the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) smart card standard, two critical factors are lagging behind: merchant acceptance and EMV debit. That’s according to executives who spoke Tuesday at a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, on EMV and mobile payments. U.S. issuers and merchants face an …