Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Payments industry professionals attending one of the four regional acquiring conferences can expect to see more from the Electronic Transactions Association at the events. n “This is a conscious effort on the part of the ETA to participate, support them, and engage in mutually beneficial activities,” Oxman tells Digital Transactions …

Merchants that think payment services should leverage software, be simple to integrate, carry low or no fees, and include digital-currency choices have a champion in PayStand, a startup that emerged Tuesday from private beta with $1 million in funding and a promise of no transaction fees for online sellers. The …

Two banks that sued Target Corp. and data-security services provider Trustwave Holdings Inc. in the wake of Target’s massive data breach have withdrawn their federal lawsuit after filing it only a week ago, leaving payments-industry observers wondering why they brought the action in the first place. In separate motions filed …

E-commerce retailers have a unique advantage over their brick-and-mortar counterparts. They typically know quite a bit about a shopper’s purchasing habits, and that helps them create personalized offers that bring back customers to spend more. Index, a San Francisco-based company, hopes to give large brick-and-mortar retailers a tool to enable …

  Debit network NYCE says it will use Visa Inc.’s common application identifier technology on chip debit cards, marking yet another regional debit network’s acceptance of a critical component to enabling Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card acceptance in the United States. This is NYCE’s first formal EMV license, says Fidelity National Information …

The merchant-acquiring industry might soon get another publicly traded company should independent sales organization Mercury Payment Systems Inc. follow through on plans to sell a minority stake in the company. n Mercury Payment Systems Inc.’s operating subsidiary, Mercury Payment Systems LLC, currently is 62% owned by an affiliate of private-equity …

The up-and-down course Bitcoin has followed in recent months continued on Monday as Square Inc. announced it has started accepting the digital currency on Square Market, the online marketplace it unveiled last June. The news lent some legitimacy to Bitcoin just as the currency was reeling from an Internal Revenue …

By Linda Punch Those looking for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to give Bitcoin legitimacy as a currency when the agency issued its guidance earlier this week were sorely disappointed. The IRS said the digital cash will be taxed like property, not currency. But the quest for legitimacy may be …

  A historical shift in how some federal financial law-enforcement agencies view the payments industry is under way, and it’s not one that bodes well for the industry, Jason Oxman, chief executive of the Electronic Transactions Association, told attendees at the Southeast Acquirers Association conference this week in Atlanta. Dubbed …

They’ve met in court before, and it looks like they’re going to meet again: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the No. 1 retailer, against Visa Inc., the No. 1 payment card network. As usual, the subject is interchange and payment card acceptance rules. Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart is suing Visa for alleged violations …

Discover Financial Service’s Pulse subsidiary last week became the latest debit network to license Visa Inc.’s so-called common application identifier (AID) on soon-to-be-issued Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip debit cards. This latest agreement means Visa’s common AID will be enabled on cards that account for nearly 90% of U.S. PIN-debit transactions. The …

  Merchant Warehouse Inc. has bought gift and loyalty provider Opticard and has plans to offer its services as part of bundled transaction services to merchants. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Opticard, which will continue to operate independently, sells gift and loyalty card services to small businesses. Merchants can use Opticard programs to …

Target Corp. told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday that the overlap in the number of consumers affected by the two-headed monster of its data breach may be 12 million or more. The nation’s No. 2 general retailer also said it is improving its data security in the wake of the …

Trustwave Holdings Inc., the leading provider of Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) services to merchants, on Monday became the target of a lawsuit arising from the massive data breach at Target Corp. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago by two banks, claims negligence on the part …

An appellate court’s Friday decision reinstating the Federal Reserve Board’s controversial interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment with its debit card interchange cap and transaction-routing requirements continues to draw fire, but whether the merchants and retail groups that brought the appeal and lost will trudge on in court remains …

In an unsurprising ruling, a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld the Federal Reserve Board’s controversial rule implementing the Durbin Amendment’s debit card provisions in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. A federal district judge last July overturned the rule, saying the Fed hadn’t followed Congress’s intent. Judges …

It may perennially trail McDonald’s Corp. among the leading U.S. hamburger chains, but Burger King Worldwide Inc. is on track to take the lead in mobile payments. Miami-based Burger King this week said it plans to roll out a smart phone app offering mobile payments and digital-coupons beginning in April. …

  Security and convenience-conscious consumers wielding smart phones may one day have a safer and easier way to get cash from ATMs. ATM maker Diebold Inc. is testing a cash-dispensing-only ATM that relies on a mobile wallet to authenticate the consumer, eschewing a PIN pad and card reader. The ATM, …

At a time when both banks and retailers are reeling from a rash of payment-data breaches, a technology company that has developed a system some believe could stop these breeches has announced that it has secured new patent protection for its technology. Mentor, Ohio-based CardinalCommerce Corp. said this week it …

A fresh proposal to introduce a same-day settlement capability for the automated clearing house network is encountering cautious optimism mixed with a healthy dose of skepticism among expert observers. But NACHA officials clearly see the new proposal not only as a blueprint for speedier payments but also as a first …