Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The J.M. Smucker Co.’s online store is expected to reopen next week, nearly a month after the jam-and-jelly producer closed it after discovering that hackers had broken into its computer system and stolen payment card data and other personal information on up to 23,000 customers. In other data-security news, beauty …

Hard on the heels of its announcement last week that it will support MasterCard Inc.’s so-called common application identifier (AID) on chip debit cards, processor Fiserv Inc. followed up on Monday by disclosing that its Accel network also will support Visa Inc.’s AID. The news means that Accel is the …

  Patience is not an online virtue for consumers, and, it appears, for merchants waiting for online approval of their payment-processing account applications. At least that’s the assessment of Tom Dailey, chief executive of 2Checkout, a Columbus, Ohio-based e-commerce payment-services company, which announced this week it has revised its underwriting …

Despite Bitcoin’s recent travails, the fledgling digital currency has begun to win support from some of the nation’s best-known merchants. This week came news that department-store chain Lord & Taylor will start accepting Bitcoin through a mobile app called Pounce. The news followed upbeat Bitcoin results released by online retailing …

Fiserv Inc. on Wednesday said its Accel debit network will license a critical EMV solution from MasterCard Inc. The move follows a decision by First Data Corp.’s Star network late last month to adopt similar technology from Visa Inc. and indicates the national-brand networks may be winning over the regional …

Cachet Financial Solutions Inc.’s acquisition of DeviceFidelity’s Moneto prepaid mobile platform will help open new markets for the remote-deposit capture company. n Remote-deposit capture is Cachet’s core business, Larry Blaney, executive vice president of sales, tells Digital Transactions News. But in the past two years client demand for services beyond …

  With as many as 5 million mobile point-of-sale readers in circulation in the United States, mobile POS companies will have their hands full following the liability shift set for October 2015 when the nation’s payment card networks step up the migration to the Europay-MasterCard-Visa smart card scheme. Designed to …

Might decoupled debit rise again? It very well could, according to some payments experts, and the light on the hill is the decoupled debit card issued by the battered and bruised discount retailer Target Corp. For nearly three months, Target has weathered a storm of bad publicity after confirming a …

The coming of Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards to the U.S. has many American merchants worried about the inevitable shift of credit and debit card fraud from the point of sale to online channels. EMV cards, while highly effective in thwarting counterfeiting and related card-present fraud, offer no more fraud protection …

Alternative payments? So many people are now using services such as PayPal, Amazon Payments, Google Wallet and others that the term is becoming outmoded. In a new report, Javelin Strategy & Research says eight in 10 online shoppers have used an online alternative payment service in the past year, and …

In the wake of high-profile retailer data breaches and mounting political pressure to address security flaws in the nation’s payment card system, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. on Friday said they were forming a “cross-industry group” to enhance payment security. The leading card networks said in a joint news release …

  A new mobile wallet called CloudPay may undercut traditional payment processing fees that merchants typically pay. Announced earlier this week, CloudPay from New Media Insight Group Inc., a Phoenix-based company, says merchants pay only 0.5% per transaction, a markedly lower rate than traditional pricing that might be as high …

NCR Corp.’s announcement this week that it has updated its iPad-based point-of-sale system, which it sells as NCR Silver, to support loyalty programs shone a spotlight on one of the few tablet POS products that comes from a major corporation in a market that has attracted a raft of startups. …

  PowaTag is a mobile commerce app that hopes to make it easier for consumers to buy with their smart phones. Launched this week, PowaTag identifies products using a smart phone’s camera and microphone to detect special cues embedded in print displays, television commercials or online using the PowaTag watermark. …

Given the massive news coverage about payment card security since December in the wake of Target Corp.’s huge data breach and other ones at Neiman Marcus Group and Michaels, you might think that data protection is top of mind among small-business owners. Not so, according to results of a new …

Consumers wanting a way to make online payments with some anonymity may be able to use the new Pay in Private virtual prepaid card service available as an iPhone or Android app. n “It’s not a solution for everybody,” Klein tells Digital Transactions News. “It’s a solution for a segment …

A concept that would do away with paper checks while retaining their payment advantages took a step closer to fruition this week with the introduction of a mobile app that lets users create and send check images. The app, called Mobile Checkbook, works with Apple Inc. iOS devices and comes …

A recent study by First Annapolis Consulting Inc. found that 22 of the nation’s 30 largest debit card issuers are actively replacing cards in the wake of retailer Target Corp.’s massive data breach. Meanwhile, a suburban Chicago bank warned customers not to use their debit cards in Chicago taxicabs and …

Consumers are responding enthusiastically to a new service that lets them buy goods from and otherwise interact with brands via social media in sports stadiums, through TV ads, and other venues, according to results released Monday by Chirpify, the Portland, Ore.-based company that announced the service in September. The service …

By John Stewart Nearly a year after its launch, a service at U.S. Bank that lets customers enter biller details and pay bills by snapping photos of the bills with a smart phone is helping the banking giant make big gains with mobile users, a critical demographic group, a U.S. …