Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The alliance MasterCard Inc. announced earlier this week with Intel Corp. to secure e-commerce transactions will not supersede SecureCode, a MasterCard online authentication system, but will fairly soon lead to a new type of contactless-payment device from an emerging category of ultra-thin, fast-start PCs, executives with both companies tell Digital …

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  Visa Inc. will launch its digital wallet product some time early in 2012, but contactless-payment capability won’t be part of the wallet until the second half of the year, a Visa executive responsible for the product tells Digital Transactions News. The first release of the wallet, which Visa is …

  n While the mobile service just launched, early results have been “overwhelmingly positive,” says Julian King, Xoom’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate development. “Out customer base is delighted, but it’s super early.” The new service relies on technology from mobile-commerce vendor Usablenet Inc., New York. n The …

  n n n n n n n n n Besides generating recommendations and advice applicable immediately, Russo expects the SIGs will develop insights that find their way into the next major update of the existing PCI version 2.0. Version 3.0 will be unveiled in late 2013 and take effect …

Mobile-deposit and imaging software provider Mitek Systems Inc. said it doubled to 161 the number of financial-institution customers of its flagship Mobile Deposit product in its fourth fiscal 2011 quarter from 80 in the third quarter. The nation’s top five banks and seven of the top 10 now use or …

Vantiv Inc. filed a registration statement on Thursday for a proposed initial public offering of common stock that, if successful, would have a business started by Fifth Third Bancorp join the thin ranks of publicly traded processors that get most of their revenues from merchant acquiring. Vantiv, formerly known as …

  The Star EFT network, which has been working for several years on ways to enable cardholders to conduct PIN-debit transactions with online merchants, said on Thursday it will offer a service from CardinalCommerce Corp. that promises to allow issuers to choose how to authenticate users of PIN-debit cards in …

  In the wake of strong growth in its mobile-payments business, PayPal Inc. on Tuesday made available an upgraded Android app that includes a widget for person-to-person payments using near-field communication (NFC) technology. The launch represents the San Jose, Calif.-based e-commerce processor’s first live product based on NFC, a short-range …

  n n n n n “We’re looking to play in the broad commerce space,” Sanghi tells Digital Transactions News, noting that AmEx started as a stagecoach company 162 years ago. “We’ve reinvented ourselves continuously.” He adds that although most of the investments probably will be domestic, AmEx might invest …

  n Online payments to billers increased nearly 10%, to 657.3 million transactions, compared to the same quarter in 2010. These are transactions handled under the ACH’s WEB application, which for some time now has been the network’s biggest e-check category. They represent payments consumers make on the Web sites …

  Vending machine payment-services provider USA Technologies Inc. has struck a one-year interchange deal with Visa Inc. that allows machine owners to accept debit cards without higher costs. New interchange pricing that took effect Oct. 1 had threatened to raise card-acceptance costs for USA Technologies’ clients by more than 200%. …

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Small merchants are not much more aware of—let alone compliant with—the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) than they were a year ago, according to a study released this week. Some 53% of small merchants are now at least aware of PCI, a small increase from the 47% a similar …

Square Inc. on Wednesday introduced an enhancement to its Card Case wallet application that detects when a user is near a participating store and automatically links the user’s phone to the store’s Square account. By relying on this method, which the San Francisco startup calls automatically opening a tab, the …

  n At a conference call with analysts to discuss the No. 2 payment card network’s third-quarter earnings, MasterCard president and chief executive Ajay Banga said his company is offering select merchants and merchant acquirers incentives to direct debit card transactions MasterCard’s way. “We are in a completely different competitive …

Extending itself further into mobile retailing and software, VeriFone Systems Inc. on Tuesday announced it has acquired 9-year-old Global Bay Media Technologies, a South Plainfield, N.J., vendor of in-store mobile solutions. Terms of the deal, which had already closed by the time of the announcement, were not disclosed. The acquisition …

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  Two industry trade groups are asking for a delay in implementation of portions of the new federal law requiring acquirers to report merchants’ electronic payment transactions to the Internal Revenue Service, saying constant changes in the reporting form and other problems are making it difficult to meet the reporting …

Responding to complaints about problems in implementing a new federal law requiring acquirers to report merchants’ electronic payment transactions, the Internal Revenue Service announced on Wednesday it will delay penalty provisions and withholding requirements for a year, until Jan. 1, 2013. Acquirers still are required to file the new 1099-K …