Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

PIN-debit cards and contactless acceptance seem like two unlikely electronic-payment services to promote in one point-of-sale device, but that's exactly what First Data Corp. is doing with the latest addition to its FD line of POS hardware. The big processor's goal with the new FD-30 PIN pad: build future demand …

With the credit crisis still blowing at gale force, Discover Financial Services managed to grow its second-quarter transaction and dollar volume thanks mostly to its Pulse PIN-debit network and Diners Club International more than offsetting weak credit card volume. Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover reported Thursday that it handled a total of …

Electronic bill-payment consolidators?notably banks?could finally claim at least half the market, but to hold on to their gains, banks will need to pay special attention to affluent young adults. That's a key conclusion in a new forecast for the growing bill-pay market by Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. Forrester predicts …

MasterCard Inc. on Wednesday announced its person-to-person payment service for mobile phones has launched in the U.S. with one issuer on board and an untold number waiting in the wings. The card network's Mobile MasterCard MoneySend service, which has been in the works for at least a year (Digital Transactions …

With the deadline just three months away, the banking industry is scrambling to implement IAT, the new automated clearing house code for international transactions. IAT originally was to take effect March 20. But NACHA?The Electronic Payments Association, governing body of the ACH, last July pushed it back to Sept. 18, …

Micropayments may have failed in previous attempts, but the idea of processing tiny transactions is enjoying new life in mobile payments. The latest example lies in the announcements made on Tuesday by Boku Inc. that it has acquired two rivals and is launching its worldwide service to allow handset users …

A new service debuted on Monday in Canada for which there is no equivalent in the U.S.: a single mobile person-to-person payments offering from the nation's three major wireless telecommunications companies. The service, called Zoompass, also is linked to a prepaid MasterCard PayPass contactless card that gives it utility at …

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin's introduction this week of a Senate companion to U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.'s Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2009, along with a little-noticed bill introduced last month in the House, bring to three the number of interchange bills pending in the Democrat-controlled Congress. And while …

Security issues weigh more heavily on the minds of executives with merchant acquirers and independent sales organizations than they do among any other payment card industry sector, according to new research from Aite Group LLC. Some 43% of acquiring executives rated data security, including compliance with the Payment Card Industry …

While credit card acceptance is making inroads in a slew of new markets like transit and parking, it turns out the plastic is losing ground among physicians. Some 32.7% of doctors' offices do not accept credit cards, up almost 4.5 percentage points from a year ago, according to a survey …

Wausau Financial Systems Inc., which late last year introduced a version of its remote deposit capture product specifically designed for independent sales organizations, has signed one ISO and will have three more on board by the end of the month, according to a company executive and company reports. Wausau, a …

They're mad as hell, but whether they're going to take it any more isn't quite as clear. That's the essence of a letter seven merchant trade groups sent Tuesday to the PCI Security Standards Council and the five general-purpose payment card networks. The merchants want more input when the Payment …

The Credit Card Fair Fee Act, a bill that would inject government into the interchange-setting process, has been resurrected after dying in committee last year. But this time there are more players around the table seemingly less inclined to sympathize with the defenders of the current bank card interchange system. …

Malicious software has been discovered on some Eastern European ATMs that has dangerous new powers to extract money as well as card data, according to a security executive. Meanwhile, Sony Corp. of America has confirmed that someone illicitly copied more than 5,000 credit card numbers of its customers who visited …

While the recession is making an impact on consumer spending generally, PIN debit card usage is faring considerably better than that of signature debit. Indeed, PIN debit transactions by consumers grew 15% between July and December, the period during which the economic downturn began making itself felt, nearly four times …

The effort to extend PIN debit to Web-based commerce embraced credit unions this week with the announcement by the Credit Union 24 electronic funds transfer network that it will pilot technology from Acculynk Inc., an Atlanta-based software company. The network, which links more than 100,000 ATMs and almost 500,000 point-of-sale …

In an indication of how fast mobile banking is developing as a mainstream product for financial institutions, Fiserv Inc. this week released a version of its Mobile Money software that could let banks deploy a mobile-banking service in three months or less. The new version, called Mobile Money FastTrack, is …

Banks aiming to improve customer service should accelerate their move away from old ATMs and the IBM operating system that ran them for years, according to conclusions in a new Aite Group LLC study of banks' ATM channels. While the transition from IBM Corp.'s old OS/2 operating system to Microsoft …

Merchants and independent sales organizations just aren't in a buying mood, and that's hurting the top line of the largest U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker, VeriFone Holdings Inc. San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone late Tuesday reported that revenues for its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended April 30 fell 13.5% to $201.6 million …

Spurred by the increasing popularity of smart phones and a strong push by financial institutions, the number of Americans actively using mobile-banking services could grow to 53.1 million by 2013, an increase of 431% from an estimated 10 million today. That's the prediction from research firm TowerGroup Inc., which this …