Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

  Consumers are expected to use their smart phones and tablets to do more than check prices this holiday season. More of them expect to make mobile-commerce purchases—forecasted to reach $1.6 billion on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday— finds the Adobe Digital Index, a research service from Adobe …

Mobile-payments volume will nearly triple from $51.5 billion this year to $141.7 billion in 2019, according to a new report from Forrester Research Inc. That’s pretty exciting news for payments networks, processors, banks, tech specialists, and others with a stake in the budding sector. But wait. Even with all that …

Before the emergence of Bitcoin and other such alternative currencies, people collected and traded airline miles. Many still do, which is what United Airlines and OTG Management, an operator of restaurants in 10 North American airports, are counting on. The two companies on Monday announced holders of United frequent-flyer miles …

Some of the nation’s largest prepaid card companies are either giving a public thumbs up to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed regulations for prepaid card accounts or at least not saying they’re spoiling for a fight with the federal government. Steve Streit, chairman and chief executive of Pasadena, Calif.-based …

  Pala Interactive LLC, an online gambling operator, will use payment-processing services from Optimal Payments Plc, Optimal announced this week. Online gambling revenue in the United States is forecasted to be $2.6 billion by 2017, according to one estimate. Another estimate, from Odobo and H2 Gambling Capital, forecasts $7.7 billion …

Google Inc.’s decision to kill its application programming interface for digital-goods sales may have more to do with the expense and complexity of the market than with any underlying strategy to retreat from the digital-wallet business overall, experts say. Google on Thursday announced it will shut down the 2-year-old API …

  PayPal Inc. will use electronic gift card services from InComm Holdings Inc., a move that will enable PayPal to expand the number of retailers’ gift cards that it sells on the PayPal Digital Gifts store and in the eBay marketplace. PayPal, a unit of San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc., …

By Jim Daly Mocapay Inc., one of the nation’s pioneers in mobile payments, hopes to expand its small footprint through a new distribution agreement announced this week with Merchant Link, a gateway and data-security service owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s merchant-acquiring unit, Chase Paymentech. Founded in 2007, Denver-based Mocapay …

  Want to know where the chargebacks are coming from? Chargebacks911 has ranked the top five U.S. cities in terms of chargeback rates, placing a ZIP code in Show Low, Ariz., with a 2.2% rate, at the top. The study of 500,000 chargebacks of e-commerce transactions made in 2013 indicates …

By Jim Daly The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday unveiled proposed regulations for prepaid accounts that for the first time would bring to prepaid cards many of the federal protections that currently apply only to credit and debit cards. The CFPB’s plan would limit consumers’ losses when funds are …

In short order, competition in the business of funding small merchants has ratcheted up to new highs, with new, online and technology-based entrants flooding the market. One of the most recent, and successful, of these new entrants is Atlanta-based Kabbage Inc., which this year will hit the $500 million mark …

If you want to print out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed prepaid card regulations, think again. They run 870 pages in PDF form, so you’ll need almost two reams of paper and plenty of ink. The regulations unveiled Thursday would require so-called “Know Before You Owe” disclosures and aim to …

  The message about the coming shift to chip card payments using the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) standard is getting out there, says Competiscan, a direct marketing firm. The Chicago-based firm says its analysis finds that mentions of EMV in direct mail pieces from card issuers increased from less than 3% of …

  Financial and marketing services company Mozido Inc. says it will use MasterCard Inc. payment and security products to expand its services. Austin, Texas-based Mozido provides mobile payments, loyalty and offers programs to merchants, and has a white-label mobile app. This move means that Mozido products will include MasterPass, MasterCard’s …

• American Express Co. is testing a mobile-payment service built on its Serve platform with the NBA's Brooklyn Nets and their home arena, the Barclays Center. The Brooklyn eWallet is part of the Nets' mobile app for iOS and Android smart phones; fans can store up to 10 payment cards in …

  Consumers using smart phones and tablets based on Android, iOS and Windows Mobile operating systems tend to have lax security measures in place, finds a report commissioned by authentication vendor Nok Nok Labs. Google Inc. developed Android. Apple Inc. created iOS for its mobile devices, and Microsoft Corp. owns Windows …

  In the past 12 months, 51% of consumers purchased a physical good using a mobile phone, the highest percentage in five years, potentially signaling a greater propensity for consumer adoption of mobile wallets, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. That is up from 45% in …

Tablet-based point-of-sale technology is moving apace in restaurants. Ziosk LLC, which installs tabletop tablets in eateries, announced this week Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill will install its system in all 65 of its U.S. locations. The rollout is expected to wind up by the end of February. Dallas-based Ziosk, which …

  Tablet-based point-of-sale company Revel Systems says it has secured $90 million in Series C financing, a windfall it will use to keep up with growth for its iPad-based POS systems, the company announced Tuesday. Private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, which has long invested in payments companies, …

Square Inc.’s 6-month-old cash-advance product, Square Capital, has distributed $75 million to some 15,000 small businesses, the San Francisco-based payments company announced via Twitter this week. Further, merchants that have accepted the advances have processed in excess of $1 billion in sales through Square, the company said. It also pointed …