Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Recurring revenue from transaction-processing fees has been a staple of independent sales organizations and acquirers for decades. But amid a host of new competitors, the payment-processing industry finds itself wondering what its next steps may be. ISOs are squeezed on one side by large players, like First Data Corp. …
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Clover Looks to App Market, First Data’s Backing to Set It Apart in Crowded Tablet Field
Clover Network Inc., which on Wednesday burst into a crowded market for tablet-based point-of-sale systems, is betting that merchants would like to choose their apps for customer service and checkout in the same way they can load apps on their smart phones. With the new Clover Station, merchants can download …
Read More »New York Case Raises Questions About the Future of States’ Bans on Credit Card Surcharges
By Jim Daly An injunction that puts New York State’s ban on merchants’ credit card surcharges on hold could be a prelude to a bigger legal assault on states’ surcharge restrictions. If pro-surcharging merchants prevail, their actions could add some oomph to a provision in the pending settlement of unrelated …
Read More »Retailer Beyond the Rack Signs Up for the MasterPass Online Wallet
Online retailer Beyond the Rack is among the latest retailers to accept MasterCard Inc.’s MasterPass digital wallet service on its e-commerce site, the card brand recently announced. Beyond the Rack is a members-only online retailer that sells apparel and accessories. MasterPass is a wallet platform enables mobile payments by …
Read More »Isis’s Abbott Takes the Wraps off New App As Wallet Nears National Rollout
The carrier-controlled Isis mobile-payments system on Monday unveiled a new version of its application and predicted that about 30 million mobile phones will support the near-field-communication-based product by the end of 2014. Speaking at an industry trade show in Las Vegas, Michael Abbott, Isis’s chief executive, demonstrated the new mobile …
Read More »A More Inclusive American Express Paints Its Serve Prepaid Card Program Blue
Taking a cue from its Bluebird prepaid card for customers of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., American Express Co. today relaunched its Serve prepaid card with new features, more reload locations, and new retailer partners along with no reload fees at 14,000 7-Eleven and CVS/pharmacy locations, and a $1 monthly fee that …
Read More »TNS Partners with AJB Software To Bring Outsourced Payment Services to Large Retailers
Large merchants that work with AJB Software Design Inc. to handle their payments-technology integration have a new option to use for outsourcing their payment needs. They can use TNSPayDirect, a new service from Transaction Network Services Inc., which provides access to an AJB retail transaction switch. AJB’s retail transaction …
Read More »M-Payments Startup CardFree Scores First Merchant with Sonic Drive-In
CardFree, a mobile-wallet startup founded by payments-industry veterans with experience in mobile-payments apps, says its first merchant partner is Sonic Drive-In, a quick-serve restaurant chain with more than 3,500 locations. CardFree features a geo-location app to identify the consumer’s proximity to the merchant for marketing purposes. The company, which …
Read More »Subway Rollout Deal Launches Paydiant into Front Ranks of Mobile-Payments Players
The deployment, which is expected to start later this year, is being characterized by both companies as a national rollout rather than a pilot. Paydiant’s Chris Gardner, a co-founder of the Wellesley, Mass.-based company, refers deployment questions to Subway, which refuses to comment beyond the companies’ joint press release. The …
Read More »Card Network Executives Take Care To Narrowly Define Proposed Token Standard
By John Stewart As dramatic as their joint tokenization announcement was on Tuesday, key officials with Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc., and American Express Co. cautioned on Wednesday against far-reaching industry speculation about how the announcement might affect or relate to other standards, including near-field communication (NFC) and the Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) …
Read More »Analysts See Smooth Transition at Global Payments As Garcia Gives Way to Sloan
By Kevin Woodward The appointment on Tuesday of Jeffrey S. Sloan as the new chief executive of payment processor Global Payments Inc., succeeding long-time chief executive Paul Garcia, surprised hardly anyone. Sloan, who joined Global Payments as president in 2010, has a history with the company. Garcia, who was named …
Read More »Mobile Purchases Claim a Rapidly Rising Share of E-Commerce Traffic, Gateway Study Shows
By Kevin Woodward Smart phones and tablets continue to garner a larger share of payments as consumers increasingly use the mobile devices for more than talking and sending text messages, finds a survey from Amsterdam-based global gateway provider Adyen Inc. In the Adyen Global Mobile Payments Index, covering May through August, …
Read More »Dueling Studies Reach Opposite Conclusions About Consumers’ Durbin Savings
Durbin Amendment critics have long accused merchants of pocketing the billions they’ve saved since the amendment’s highly controversial debit card interchange price controls took effect two years ago Tuesday. Now, however, retailers are rolling out a study estimating that merchants passed on $5.86 billion in Durbin-related savings to consumers last …
Read More »Survey Finds ATM and Most Other Checking Fees Growing Only Modestly in 2013
The average ATM surcharge rose 4% over the last year, but the average foreign fee fell 2.5%, according to new data from research firm Bankrate Inc. Findings from Bankrate’s latest annual survey of checking-account fees, including ATM and overdraft charges, shows overall price increases have slowed, a possible indication that …
Read More »Having Stopped Branch Sales, Chase Exits the Open-Loop Gift Card Business Entirely
JPMorgan Chase & Co., which this spring stopped selling Visa gift cards through its network of branches, has now quit the business entirely. The decision comes weeks ahead of the biggest selling season of the year for gift cards but doesn’t surprise some observers, who point to the challenges recent …
Read More »As Judge Mulls Settlement, a Thorny Issue over Merchant Claims Roils the Court
All eyes in the payments business were riveted on Brooklyn earlier this month as lawyers wrangled in federal court over the proposed credit card interchange settlement. What many interested parties—including most observers in the courtroom that day–may have missed, however, is that the hearing brought to light for the first …
Read More »Fast-Growing Braintree Brings Merchant Focus, Market Share to PayPal Wallet, Observers Say
EBay Inc.’s agreement to shell out $800 million for Braintree Payments Solutions LLC, announced on Thursday, signals the online auction giant’s desire to extend its PayPal brand further into mobile commerce and in-store commerce, analysts suggest. EBay’s confirmation of the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, …
Read More »‘Medium-Sized’ Changes on Tap With PCI’s Pending Version 3.0
The upcoming Version 3.0 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) is being billed as having more than a few tweaks but not wholesale changes from the three-year-old Version 2.0 that it will replace in November. “It’s a medium-sized change,” says Anton Chuvakin, research director, security and risk …
Read More »In Helping out Archrival Square, Intuit May Have More To Gain Than To Lose
At first glance, it looks like a lopsided collaboration between competitors, but the agreement by which mobile point-of-sale upstart Square Inc. will integrate Intuit Inc.’s popular QuickBooks accounting software may end up benefiting both parties equally, some observers say. Under the deal, announced on Tuesday, users of the Square Register …
Read More »Post-VeriFone, Bergeron Runs a $500 Million Warchest To Buy Payments Companies
By Kevin Woodward Six months after leaving point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc., Douglas G. Bergeron is leading a new enterprise targeting financial-services and payments companies for acquisition. Dubbed Opus Global Holdings LLC, the new company has $500 million at its disposal to buy companies. Bergeron is collaborating …
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