Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

After a long period of downsizing and financial turbulence, non-bank ATM network operator TRM Corp. says it's getting its act in order and is ready to grow again. Portland, Ore.-based TRM just bought the New Jersey-based Access To Money network in a $15 million deal that brings another 4,200 ATMs …

PayPal Inc.'s drive to process a greater share of its transactions outside of the auction marketplace run by its parent company, eBay Inc., showed more signs of succeeding last week with the release of statistics indicating the online processor is now deriving almost half of its payment volume from online …

It's the new, old payment system. That's essentially how an electronic-payments startup called eLayaway LLC is billing itself as it prepares for bigger things following two years of testing and a low-key rollout to merchants and consumers. Tallahassee, Fla.-based eLayaway's slogan is “credit is overrated.” Its system allows consumers, once …

The troubled buyout of Alliance Data Systems Inc. by private-equity firm The Blackstone Group officially died this past weekend, a death that came as no surprise to the payments industry. But still alive is Alliance's effort to sell its merchant-acquiring business built around the former BSI Business Services Inc. front-end …

Implementation of the controversial Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) would be prohibited under new legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month. The UIGEA bans gaming sites from accepting money transfers of any kind for bets deemed to be unlawful gambling. It also directs …

The Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, is in line for its second upgrade since the PCI Security Standards Council took over development of the standards for protecting cardholder data from the major card networks in 2006. PCI Council general manager Robert Russo announced the coming upgrade Wednesday at …

While hard data are not yet available, anecdotal evidence indicates consumers are pleased with a mobile-payments pilot in San Francisco using phones equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology and involving the Bay Area Rapid Transit rail system and Jack in the Box Inc. fast-food restaurants. “We've supported thousands of rides …

The Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008 has gotten lots of press for its plan to regulate interchange, but merchant-acquiring industry lawyers say that bill has little chance of passage. The far greater threat is a tax proposal for finding merchants' supposedly underreported cash receipts?a proposal that could forcibly …

In an effort to reach very small online merchants seeking a streamlined way to process payments, Authorize.Net on Tuesday unveiled a service it calls Simple Checkout. The new service allows the merchant to use a Web interface to automatically create the code necessary to place a “Buy Now” button on …

While big oil companies at times have temporarily lowered card-acceptance costs in recent years to help gas stations cope with spikes in the price of oil, Shell Oil Co. today said it would permanently lower the price of card processing as well as speed up settlement times for its jobbers …

Leading card processor First Data Corp. on Friday found itself cast as the villain in the bankruptcy of Denver-based Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc., which claimed it sought Chapter 11 reorganization in order to prevent its card processor, First Data Corp., from increasing the so-called “holdback” on card charges and thereby …

A 3-year-old startup in Alameda, Calif., is introducing a mobile wallet that combines contactless payments based on near-field communication (NFC) technology with person-to-person payments and mobile banking. Mobile Candy Dish Inc. last week rolled out its Blaze Mobile Wallet, which works on the AT&T Mobility and Sprint Nextel wireless networks …

It grew 267% in just one quarter, yet the new back-office conversion (BOC) electronic-check code still isn't getting any respect. But it will, according to officials at NACHA, governing body of the automated clearing house network. NACHA reports that the ACH handled 3.08 million BOC transactions in 2007's fourth quarter …

VeriFone Holdings Inc., a major terminal manufacturer, is entering the burgeoning business of card-data security with a product it says will secure cardholder information from the instant the card is swiped. The product, VeriShield Protect, was announced on Wednesday and encrypts mag-stripe data and the personal account number for the …

Debit is where the transaction growth is, and now MasterCard Inc. is positioning itself at the center of the action with a new debit-processing platform for card issuers that it calls Integrated Processing Solutions. IPS handles everything from ATM and signature- and PIN-based debit card transactions to prepaid cards?and it …

Three months after biometrics-technology provider and payment processor Pay By Touch sought protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles, the dismantling of the firm’s sprawling empire is largely over. Judge Thomas B. Donovan recently approved the sale of the core assets of Solidus Networks Inc.—the formal name of Pay …

Seemingly trapped in North America after shedding its money-losing British credit card operation in March, Discover Financial Services LLC suddenly is a global payments player with its pending deal to buy Diners Club International from Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank N.A. for $165 million in cash. The deal adds 8 million merchant …

Washington Mutual Inc.'s announcement this week that it plans to issue 12 million to 15 million debit cards with MasterCard Inc.'s PayPass contactless functionality this year may do more than make the $328 billion bank the No. 1 PayPass issuer. It just might give the nascent contactless market enough critical …

PIN debit on the Internet may become a commercial reality in 2008 if the small Atlanta company that bought ATM Direct from the bankrupt Pay By Touch Inc. fulfills ambitious plans it has laid out for the processor. Over the course of the next 90 to 120 days, ATM Direct …

In a move that it hopes will attract more users to its mobile-payments product, Obopay Inc. is allowing account holders to send money to other persons directly out of their checking accounts. In a further change, recipients of these transfers no longer need to have Obopay accounts and may have …