Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

  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 …

With a critical deadline coming up in less than a year, it has become a common observation about the U.S. conversion to the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip card standard that transaction fraud prevented by EMV will simply move into e-commerce channels. Now, a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research argues …

Surprise shipping costs are the leading cause of shopping-cart abandonment. Meanwhile, shopping apps are popular, but not used as much as you might think. And while social networks have grown in popularity every year, they have a surprisingly small influence on e-commerce buying decisions. n Asked what factors cause them …

n Card network Visa Inc. plans to eke out even better merchant compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard with a new enforcement plan targeting the largest merchants. The program is scheduled for a Jan. 1 start. That’s according to a copy of an Oct. 21 Visa Bulletin …

Payment processor JetPay Corp. on Monday reported that it had acquired ACI Merchant Systems LLC, an independent sales organization that works through financial institutions to provide credit and debit card processing to their small and mid-sized business customers. Meanwhile, the big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. recently bought Xpient …

The Durbin Amendment may be best known for its stringent ceiling on debit card interchange, but merchants are discovering that another part of the law that requires transaction-routing choices can be just as effective as rate caps in controlling processing costs. Giant Eagle Inc., a Pittsburgh-based supermarket chain operating nearly …

Bitcoin merchant-services provider BitPay Inc. has launched an app to enable one-tap Bitcoin payment at the point of sale. Dubbed Bitcoin Checkout, the app is available now for smart phones and tablets using Android. An iOS version is planned for Apple Inc. devices. The app, when loaded onto a smart phone …

  Federal law enforcement agencies said Thursday they arrested the person they allege ran a Web site devoted to the buying and selling of illegal drugs using the virtual currency known as Bitcoin. Officials with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the FBI and the Homeland …

By Jim Daly MasterCard Inc. announced Thursday that it has a deal to buy gateway businesses from TNS Inc. that will expand the global footprint of its DataCash e-commerce subsidiary. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close by year’s end, were not disclosed. The sale includes two units …

Just because merchants have until next October to install terminals capable of processing chip cards and avoid shouldering liability for counterfeit card transactions doesn’t mean most of them will have done so by that date. Many experts, and a number of merchants themselves, have made that point. But major terminal …

Payment processor Total System Services (TSYS) this week says it is embarking on a new approach to technology, one that forms a core component of its business and information technology strategy. Called Surround, the approach is expected to lead to products that have easier integrations, greater flexibility and financial innovation, …

Tip.ly is a new app that wants to make it easier for patrons to tip their servers. The iPhone-only app is designed to solve the problem of how to leave a tip when a consumer has no cash. Consumers associate a payment card with their Tip.ly accounts. Recipients collect the …

By John Stewart Merchant Customer Exchange LLC (MCX) has launched its CurrentC mobile-payment service with “thousands” of consumers in “several American cities,” the program’s chief executive said on Wednesday. The “consumers,” employees of retailers that make up the Needham, Mass.-based MCX consortium, are part of a pilot for the fledgling …