Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Payment card transaction-processing technology developer VeriFone Systems Inc. is betting that consumers might want to play the lottery while they’re semi-idle gassing up their cars or moving around town in a taxicab. The leading point-of-sale terminal maker said on Wednesday that it would test sales of state lottery tickets by …

The Home Depot Inc. on Tuesday started rolling out a point-of-sale payment system that will let customers pay with their PayPal accounts at all of the home-improvement retailer’s almost 2,000 U.S. stores. The rollout comes just seven weeks after the two companies unveiled a five-store pilot in the San Francisco …

In a move that could indicate a thaw in the long cold war between banks and wireless carriers in the mobile-payments business, the carrier-controlled Isis venture on Monday announced a trio of major banks are the first to sign on as issuers on its platform. Indeed, with the Isis wallet …

Merchant processor Square Inc. is seeking a piece of the booming payment card business in New York City taxicabs, a market that is currently the exclusive domain of VeriFone Systems Inc. and another company that provide TV content and card acceptance to 13,237 cabs. San Francisco-based Square is proposing to …

The Isis mobile wallet, set for release in two U.S. cities this summer, will feature a prepaid card with cash already loaded and a capability to “follow” participating merchants to receive coupons and other offers. The broad outlines of how the wallet will work were disclosed on Wednesday as Isis …

  The bank card networks will introduce new fees for merchant acquirers in April, according to information obtained by Digital Transactions News. The most significant fee is Visa Inc.’s new Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF), a key component of a revamped pricing strategy the No. 1 payment card network announced …

With e-commerce kingpin PayPal Inc. having used mobile technology to move into processing for brick-and-mortar merchants, it was probably only a matter of time before others followed suit. The latest to join the parade is San Francisco-based mobile-payments provider Boku Inc., which on Thursday announced a platform that will let …

The Isis mobile-payments platform plans to go live at about 1,000 merchant locations in each of the two cities it has targeted for what it calls a “soft launch” this summer, according to officials with the company. While Isis will not identify the merchants it is talking to, it is …

After bottoming out in 2010, identity fraud rose nearly 13% last year, according to new findings from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin’s findings also associate two hallmarks of the tech-oriented early 21st Century, social networks and smart phones, with a higher risk of identity fraud. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Javelin surveyed 5,022 …

The war of words between the payments industry on the one side and retailers on the other side continued this week when a lobbying group backed by big banks and payment card networks released survey results claiming that only a tiny fraction of consumers believe retailers are passing on their …

Some of the nation’s biggest merchants have been adamant for months that they prefer EMV payments with PINs, not signatures, and on Thursday they were joined in that sentiment by a panel of representatives from some of the country’s largest processors. In the face of tepid support, at best, for …

Responding to pressure from retailers, the Internal Revenue Service this month announced that it would give merchants a pass on what merchants feared would be a new hassle when filling out their tax returns. The change will reduce the compliance burden on merchants, but it also could undercut the government’s …

Behind all the buzz about social payments and virtual currency is an often-overlooked fact: few social-network members today actually use digital money. The antidote for this ailment, according to executives in the social-networking world, is something they call monetization, which is simply a term for tactics that generate revenues from …

Mocapay Inc., one of the earliest startups in the mobile-payments space, finally is poised to go national with new partners, a different pricing model, and a broadened set of technological options that its president says makes payments by smart phone easier for merchants and consumers. Mocapay launched in 2006 and …

Google Inc. late on Tuesday announced a solution for a security flaw in its mobile wallet that allows hackers to gain access to wallet owners’ prepaid accounts. Google also said it had, on Monday afternoon, restored the ability to load funds on new prepaid cards. In response to the flaw, …

The nation’s largest transit operators are moving toward so-called open-fare payment systems that will enable riders to pay fares with just a tap of a contactless bank card at a subway turnstile or a terminal on a bus. Replacement of old fare systems, however, is not going at nearly the …

With both Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. now on the record with plans to encourage the adoption of EMV chip card and mobile payments in the U.S, it seems all but certain that the magnetic-stripe payment card’s days are numbered. In fact, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. already is seeing some EMV …

While acknowledging that federal pricing regulations are crimping growth in its debit card business, Visa Inc. late on Wednesday presented an upbeat report to investors that stressed new ventures like its recently introduced digital wallet, V.me. Separately, the world’s largest card network also unveiled new tools to help client banks …

Among all the types of merchants that accept card transactions, coffee shops, pizza parlors, burger places, and food stores might need to keep an extra-careful watch on their card data. If they’re operating as a franchisee and part of a chain, they might want to be especially wary. And if …

Visa Inc. reported on Monday that its U.S. financial-institution clients have issued more than 1 million chip cards compliant with the EMV standard. The leading payment card network also introduced new EMV processing services so that issuers can reduce their own investments in chip technology. Just over 10 issuers now …