Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The bankruptcy petition Solidus Networks Inc., which does business as Pay By Touch, filed this month shows that a number of the biometric technology provider's largest unsecured creditors also have equity interests in the company, and, in the case of three individuals, weren't paid when Pay By Touch bought their …

While holiday-season shopping activity overall for 2007 may have seen only a lukewarm increase compared to last year, purchases online surged ahead, reaching their peak a week before Christmas. On Dec. 18, online sales for 10 of the 30 largest e-commerce merchants hit $169 million on more than 3 million …

Intuit Inc.'s agreement to buy Electronic Check Clearing House Inc. (ECHO) for $131 million in cash, announced on Wednesday, came about largely because of ECHO's move to shed its gambling-related electronic-wallet business earlier this year, an Intuit executive tells Digital Transactions News. It was that business, in which ECHO processed …

TJX Cos. Inc. late on Tuesday said it has settled with three banking associations and three individual banks that sued the off-price retailer in the wake of a data breach that potentially compromised nearly 100 million credit and debit card numbers. That leaves just one Alabama community bank still in …

A small engineering company in Montreal has struck a deal with Universal Air Travel Plan Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based switch for some 220 airlines and travel agencies around the world, to enable air carriers to accept PIN debit and credit cards on their Web sites with card-swipe authentication. In addition, …

Some 3.6 million U.S. adults were victims of phishing attacks in the 12 months ending in August, losing an average of $886 apiece for an estimated total of $3.2 billion, according to a survey of more than 4,500 online users sponsored by Gartner Inc. Gartner, a technology research firm based …

Seeking to create a more fluid market for merchant portfolios, two entrepreneurs have created a Web site to showcase assets and broker deals. Boston-based Merchantportfolios.com, which went live about a month ago, is attracting what Lane Gordon, one of the partners, refers to as a “double-digit” number of users browsing …

Taking a cue from Discover Financial Services, travel-and-entertainment card leader American Express Co. on Monday said that it had enlisted processor First Data Corp. to book new small and mid-size merchants. But unlike Discover's recent pacts with First Data and other big merchant processors that involved sales of Discover-owned merchant …

Euronet Worldwide Inc., which on Thursday made public a stock offer valued at $1.65 billion for rival money-transfer company MoneyGram International Inc., has rejected an offer from MoneyGram to discuss the possible combination of the two companies because of a condition MoneyGram wanted to impose that would have stopped Euronet’s …

In its seventh action against a payment processor since 2004, the Federal Trade Commission along with seven state attorneys general announced this week they are suing a Lake Mary, Fla.-based check and automated clearing house processor that extracted millions of dollars from consumers by processing fraudulent payments for a suspect …

Evidence that the battle for supremacy among alternative-payments providers remains intense arrived on Wednesday with Google Inc.'s announcement that its Checkout service will continue to process transactions for free through January. “Considering how busy this time of year is for you,” says Checkout product marketing manager Gavin Chan in a …

Cardtronics Inc., operator of the nation's largest non-bank ATM network, completed its initial public offering of stock on Monday and began trading Tuesday on the NASDAQ stock market, but only after cutting the size of the deal in a stormy stock market. Houston-based Cardtronics announced its planned IPO in September. …

At the stroke of a pen, Bill Me Later Inc. has not only become the sole third-party alternative payment vehicle accepted by the world's largest retailing Web site, but it also receives an injection of capital as that site, Amazon.com Inc., takes an undisclosed equity stake in the Timonium, Md.-based …

PIN debit transactions are growing significantly faster than signature debit payments. Checks processed electronically are approaching half of all checks paid. And transactions on the automated clearing house are growing faster than any other form of payment. These are among the more surprising results of the Federal Reserve's tri-annual payments …

In a development that could long complicate the introduction of commercial services allowing consumers to make point-of-sale payments with their mobile phones, mobile network operators say they will derive POS payment revenue chiefly from consumer transaction fees. According to research released this week, some 83% of carriers responding to an …

Growth in the new back-office conversion, or BOC, electronic-check code far outpaced growth of all other automated clearing house transaction categories in the third quarter, but don't get too excited yet. BOC only went live March 16, so its 238% increase to 840,743 transactions came off a very small base …

A clarification of a rule regarding transaction aggregation, announced last week by NACHA, was driven chiefly by banks that intended to hamper a new PIN debit card being introduced by Capital One Financial Corp., sources tell Digital Transactions News. The new card, which came to light late this spring (Digital …

The practice of giving away point-of-sale payment terminals, which started out as a tactic to attract salespeople, has become a huge phenomenon in the merchant-acquiring business that threatens the profitability of many industry firms, particularly smaller independent sales organizations more reliant on hardware revenues than larger acquirers. That's the conclusion …

TIO Networks Corp. signaled a new strategy last week when the kiosk network struck a deal with IPP of America Inc. to process bill payments at IPP walk-in locations (Digital Transactions News, Nov. 29). For the first time, TIO will be handling transactions on its network without the need to …

The settlement The TJX Cos. and Visa Inc. announced Friday not only shows the retailer is well on its way to disposing of the myriad problems arising out the intrusion into its computer system that potentially compromised nearly 100 million credit and debit cards, but it also gives a rare …