Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

With a freshly revised version of industry rules for payment card data security having just emerged (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 28), further evidence is also surfacing of the compliance challenge acquirers face with the smallest merchants. Indeed, the smaller the business, the less sensitive it is to the possibility of …

Banks, billers, and processors seeking to boost electronic bill-payment usage would do well to cast their lot with young, affluent consumers who are heavy users of smart phones, according to new research from Aite Group LLC. This cohort, whom Aite dubs “smartphonatics,” accounts for just 7% of consumers but make …

The specter of regulation cast a pall of uncertainty over Visa Inc.’s latest financials, but the U.S. operating statistics the world’s largest payment network reported on Wednesday bespoke a transaction machine shifting in high, or least a higher, gear. U.S. debit card payments volume broke the trillion-dollar mark in fiscal …

The new version 2.0 of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) came out Thursday, an upgrade the PCI Security Standards Council says contains no major changes. Still, a document summarizing all the tweaks to the major card networks' common set of data-protection rules runs 20 pages in length. Among …

With competition heating up in the market for person-to-person payments, Fiserv Inc. reports its 3-month-old ZashPay service is making headway with client financial institutions. The service now claims some 400,000 registered users, while more than 400 banks and credit unions have signed on to offer it, with 100 of those …

PayPal Inc. took another step toward the physical point of sale on Tuesday with the announcement that it will work with VeriFone Systems Inc. to let merchants accept PayPal payments on VeriFone’s PAYware Mobile application. Starting early next year, merchants will be able take PayPal from customers on the application, …

In the biggest expansion yet of mobile payments to its standalone stores, Starbucks Coffee Co. on Monday said it has equipped almost 300 company-owned stores in New York City and parts of Long Island to accept transactions using 2-D bar code technology. This expansion follows the Seattle-based coffee chain’s move …

Third-party software applications linked to payment processors’ and networks’ systems are becoming the name of the game for attracting merchants, and No. 1 network Visa Inc. is now a player thanks to upgrades to the Authorize.Net unit of its new CyberSource Corp. subsidiary. The new features on Authorize.Net’s Developer Center …

Mitek Systems Inc., the pioneering developer of remote deposit capture software for mobile devices, is now moving into mobile capture for bill payments. With San Diego-based Mitek’s new Mobile Photo Bill Pay application, a consumer could take a picture of a paper bill with his camera-equipped smart phone, and then …

With its developer conference just ahead and new markets such as mobile payments opening up, PayPal Inc. put the oomph in its parent company eBay Inc.’s third-quarter financial report. But with more than 90 active million customers and $22 billion in quarterly payments volume, a question on some minds is …

Mobile banking, and by extension mobile payments, have rapidly crossed the line from add-on to necessary products for financial institutions, speakers and other sources at a banking-technology expo said on Wednesday. The primary reason mobile has assumed such importance has more to do with fear of attrition than with revenue …

The storm clouds over prepaid card program manager NetSpend Holdings Inc.’s IPO caused by regulatory problems at MetaBank, the prepaid card program manager’s main issuing partner, cleared Monday, enabling NetSpend to go through with the stock offering at the mid-point of its projected price range. And on Tuesday afternoon, NetSpend’s …

PayPal Inc.’s 1-year-old person-to-person payment application for financial institutions is catching on with banks, says the PayPal executive charged with marketing the product, part of a collection of payment services PayPal introduced when it opened its platform to outside developers last year. Dan Schatt, senior director and head of financial …

Two years after talk started that the major card networks had designs on Canada’s debit card market, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Visa Canada announced Monday that CIBC was introducing the country’s first Visa-branded debit card. The card, dubbed the CIBC Advantage Card, is good in Canada only for …

While tales of unemployment, foreclosures, and other economic woes abound, some payments-industry reports indicate that consumers are coming out of their shells and spending more than they did a year ago, though the picture is still mixed. JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Wednesday reported that its mega merchant-acquiring subsidiary Chase …

TCF National Bank’s federal lawsuit against the controls on debit card interchange contained in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law draws scant sympathy from retailers who have been battling against card interchange, including a merchant and entrepreneur who has been leading a crusade against the pricing mechanism for years. “It’s nonsense,” …

Banks are abandoning their dreams of ATMs generating profits and instead returning to their original focus of using the machines for customer service, according to new findings from First Annapolis Consulting Inc. Linthicum, Md.-based First Annapolis spoke with executives from the nation’s 10 largest banks by assets about their ATM …

Federal banking regulators this month cracked down on MetaBank, a major prepaid card issuer, an action that threw into question the pending initial public offering of prepaid card program manager NetSpend Corp. Austin, Texas-based NetSpend is scheduled to price its long-planned IPO on Thursday, according to reports on the financial …

TCF National Bank, a top 10 debit card issuer, on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the so-called Durbin Amendment, which, as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill Congress passed in July, will regulate debit card interchange beginning next year. TCF alleges the debit card provisions …

Just as financial institutions were digesting the idea of letting consumers deposit checks by snapping images of them with their handsets, along comes PayPal Inc. with the first such application offered by a non-bank—and one that has so far proven to be quite popular. San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal announced late …