Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Discover Financial Services is about to team up with Google Inc. to bring the Google Wallet to the physical point of sale with a Discover-branded plastic card, according to the latest rumor sweeping Silicon Valley. Discover recently began issuing cards for PayPal Inc., so if the Google rumor proves true, …

Visa Inc. on Wednesday reported brisk growth in its credit business and a stabilizing debit market while touting progress for its new digital wallet, V.me. Overall, the results released for Visa’s fourth quarter show the world’s biggest payments network is wising up about how to cope with a new, more …

In a move that will greatly expand its business in card-not-present transaction processing, merchant processor Vantiv Inc. announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Lowell, Mass.-based Litle & Co. for $361 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close later this year and will result in 11-year-old …

New PIN-debit business as a result of the Durbin Amendment continued to lift MasterCard Inc.’s transaction volume in the third quarter, though the No. 2 card network’s top executives warned on Wednesday that the big growth is likely to slow down. Meanwhile, MasterCard is turning its attention to juicing up …

Obopay Inc., a pioneer in mobile payments whose profile fell as mobile wallets gained momentum, has put itself up for sale, according to sources familiar with the matter. Details about the sale remain sketchy, including possible valuations and the identity of bidders, but sources say the 7-year-old company and its …

A 13-cent fee increase from Parkmobile USA Inc., a specialty payments processor for parking providers and municipalities, drew heavy fire last week from U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, chief sponsor of the Durbin Amendment in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act that imposed price controls on most debit card transactions. The brouhaha is the …

The retailers behind the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) mobile-payments initiative are united in backing the effort and remain committed to supporting only MCX for mobile payments in their stores, retail executives said during a panel discussion this week. While details surrounding how customers will use the yet-to-be-launched MCX and how …

The judge overseeing the mammoth litigation involving credit card interchange said on Wednesday the controversial proposed settlement appears to meet the requirements for preliminary approval. Judge John Gleeson, however, also said he would hear merchants’ objections to the settlement struck by lawyers for the merchant plaintiffs and the payment card …

Calling it a “sophisticated criminal effort,” Barnes & Noble Inc. on Wednesday reported tampering occurred on PIN pads at 63 of its stores in nine states. The company on Sept. 14 disconnected every PIN pad in all of its nearly 700 stores but indicated that in addition to personal identification …

Google Inc. will launch yet another new version of its mobile wallet in about a month, Google’s top executive for the product said on Monday. The latest version, which Osama Bedier, vice president of  Google Wallet and payments, referred to as “the 2.0 version” of the product, comes just short …

The carrier-backed Isis mobile-payment service debuted in a low-key launch Monday in Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City with almost 1,000 merchant locations participating and its near-field communication (NFC) system workable on nine smart-phone models. Digital Transactions News counted 493 merchant locations in the Salt Lake area and 470 in Austin, for …

A senior Federal Reserve official said greater speed, efficiency, and responsiveness to consumer preferences are the central bank’s top payments priorities as it plans for the next decade. But apart from promoting open communication and collaboration among industry players, Sandra Pianalto, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank …

MasterCard is getting close to announcing an EMV-related liability shift for online and other card-not-present transactions, a network executive said on Monday. “MasterCard will have a card-not-present liability shift,” said Melanie Gluck, vice president of emerging payments at the country’s second-largest payments network. “We haven’t announced it yet, it’s under …

It looks like it’s finally going to happen. The much-anticipated, much- delayed Isis mobile-payment venture backed by three big telecommunications companies is scheduled to go live on Monday in its test cities of Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City. Now the ultimate consumers of the new system, mobile-phone users, will …

Cardholders in Mexico, not the United States, report the highest incidents of card fraud, according to a new report from Boston-based Aite Group LLC and Elkhorn, Neb-based ACI Payment Systems. Of the credit, debit, and prepaid cardholders surveyed in Mexico, where EMV cards are rolling out, 44% reported an incident …

The extent of government scrutiny of the acquiring business came into sharp relief on Wednesday as a federal official told an audience of top-level executives with processors and independent sales organizations that online transaction fraud is too high and that the executives must do more to bring it down. “There …

With its “PayPal Offline” initiative to sign point-of-sale merchants for PayPal acceptance well under way, the payments subsidiary of eBay Inc. now is turning its attention to consumers, eBay executives told analysts on Wednesday. “PayPal intends to be everywhere consumers need an easy, safe, secure way to pay,” eBay president …

Despite just 10% of U.S. merchant terminals being capable of accepting EMV chip cards today, 60% of all terminals likely will be EMV-enabled by 2015, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin also expects U.S. issuers will convert the bulk of their credit, debit, and prepaid …

With a crucial deadline just five months away, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is blanketing the country this month with press releases urging recipients of Social Security and other benefits by check to adopt electronic payment. In the campaign, which started last week, the agency is sending out releases …

The market for person-to-person payments, which has percolated on low heat for several years, is showing signs of turning up the temperature. As an example of how far the market has come, the two major P2P payments networks, Fiserv Inc.’s Popmoney and clearXchange, a system unveiled last year by Bank …