Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Star, one of the nation's largest electronic funds transfer networks, on March 1 will implement changes in its interchange pricing for point-of-sale transactions that in some cases will include dramatic increases and an elimination of fee maximums. The network is also introducing on April 1 a new fee category that …

The struggling U.S. contactless card market took another blow late last year when leading consumer-electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc. stopped accepting the Visa payWave contactless card, reportedly because it objected to paying Visa Inc.'s signature-debit interchange rates. Best Buy's action probably cost the retailer nothing in lost sales but …

Merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. cleared away probably the single biggest remaining matter from the huge data breach it disclosed a year ago by announcing a $60 million settlement with Visa Inc. on Friday. The settlement will cover losses Visa credit and debit card issuers incurred in the wake …

Payment card processing glitches struck in the U.S., Germany, and Australia over the past week. Although full details about them still aren't known, the foreign ones apparently involved applications that couldn't properly handle the change in year on Jan. 1?problems eerily reminiscent of those predicted in the late 1990s during …

With an eye on the image-exchange networks banks have built since Check 21 took effect more than five years ago, analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the head of the rules-setting organization for image exchange are proposing a new form of payment that would allow consumers and …

LML Payment Systems Inc., which is pressing two patent-infringement lawsuits that could have broad implications for banks and processors that handle e-checks on the automated clearing house network, says more settlements could follow the one it reached last week with RBS Citizens Bank N.A. Patrick H. Gaines, LML's chief executive, …

While electronic payment methods continue to gain ground against paper-based payments, consumers show widely varying attitudes toward specific types of electronic methods, according to a recently released report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The paper, which the Boston Fed published last month and is based on a representative …

A Discover Financial Services employee test of contactless payment stickers for mobile devices that started in April 2009 will continue, according to a Discover executive. But Discover is being coy about if and when it or its card-issuing partners will roll out Discover's Zip contactless brand on a wide scale. …

With the 2009 holiday shopping season all but over except for some post-Christmas bargain hunting, several payments indicators show that merchant acquirers are processing more transactions than many observers expected when the season began nearly two months ago. Online shopping tracked by Chase Paymentech Solutions LLC, the nation's largest e-commerce …

Alternative-payments processor Moneta Inc. announced this week it will start offering so-called transactional credit to its users at the end of the first quarter. The credit feature, which the Atlanta-based company is adding to an online wallet that currently relies on automated clearing house debits from users' checking accounts, could …

Payment card terminal maker VeriFone Holdings Inc. on Monday issued a press release trumpeting its victory in a courtroom skirmish with merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. What VeriFone didn't mention, however, was that it is in settlement talks with Heartland that could end their multifront legal war. That war, …

MasterCard Inc. is changing a controversial policy, and pushing back a deadline, that it announced only six months ago regarding enforcement of the Payment Card Industry data-security standard. With the changes, which involve assessing computer systems for PCI compliance, MasterCard could be viewed as responding to valid complaints after first …

With two settlements announced in less than a week, merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is putting some of the legal repercussions of its huge data breach behind it as 2009 draws to a close. But most of the legal troubles Heartland faces in the wake of the breach it …

Hypercom Corp. and the McDonnell Group are forming a joint venture to deliver high speed transaction transport services worldwide. The venture, which will acquire and operate Hypercom's 5-year-old HBNet transaction-transport service, will be called Phoenix Managed Networks LLC and will be headed by John (Jack) McDonnell, founder and former chief …

The Accel/Exchange electronic funds transfer network, which on Nov. 9 became the first EFT network to roll out online PIN debit to consumers, is pleased with results so far and has plans to begin a major recruitment drive to sign up merchant acquirers for the program next year, says Michael …

Consumers have cut back their usage of credit cards in the past year, often on their own volition but also because suddenly risk-averse credit card issuers have closed millions of credit card accounts or reduced credit lines in their attempts to strengthen recession-racked balance sheets. Now the emerging question is …

VeriFone Holdings Inc. swung to a welcome $3.69 million profit in its fourth fiscal 2009 quarter and sees evidence of recovery in its global markets, but the leading U.S. point-of-sale terminal provider isn't expecting a rebound in its North American business for a while. “It's still kind of a shaky …

Matthew P. Lawlor, the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Online Resources Corp., is retiring immediately as chief executive, the company announced early Tuesday. Lawlor will remain as chairman until Feb. 15 to assist with the transition, and then scale back to serving on the board of directors of the …

A plan by the Federal Reserve to speed up certain automated clearing house transactions so they will clear on the same day they are initiated is “attracting interest” from financial institutions that use the Fed to handle their ACH traffic, says Richard Oliver, an executive vice president at the Federal …

Prepaid card processors paired up with partners ranging from Facebook to Western Union to the MoneyPass surcharge-free ATM network in deals this week that expand the processors' distribution channels and transaction sources. In a cutting-edge deal that further opens up an Internet parallel to gift card giving, grocery chain Safeway …