Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

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 …

With check volumes rapidly declining, the Federal Reserve on Monday said it would speed up its previously announced plans to downsize its paper-check processing system. Four full-service processing centers will remain, as under the earlier plan. But the closure or downsizing of other facilities will move up by anywhere from …

A handset-based service announced on Tuesday and aimed at allowing underbanked consumers to send money to individuals both in and outside the U.S. through Western Union locations could incorporate mobile wallets by the end of the year. That development would allow users of Trumpet Mobile, a reseller of prepaid wireless …

Fraudsters planted so-called malware, or malicious software, on servers at about 300 supermarkets in or affiliated with the Hannaford Bros. Inc. supermarket chain and with it were able to steal credit and debit card data, according to a letter from a Hannaford attorney to Massachusetts officials. The thefts happened even …

After first trying to sell its merchant-processing business as a single unit, bankrupt Solidus Networks Inc., which does business as Pay By Touch, is expected to sell half of it to a big Utah-based merchant acquirer, Merrick Bank Corp., for $2 million, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court …

Only one-fifth of financial institutions are using technologies that can authenticate e-mail messages, even though phishing attacks disproportionately affect banks and even though banks say they plan to rely more heavily on the e-mail channel to reach customers, a new research report says. Meanwhile, phishing attacks are not only increasing, …

Green, as in save the environment, and green, as in cash, can be two effective appeals financial institutions can use to persuade consumers to pay bills electronically through bank Web sites, though banks should be especially careful about cash incentives, researchers claim. And the security worries consumers express about electronic …

Retailers haven't exactly clamored to implement the new back-office conversion electronic-check option (BOC), but adoption will pick up, according to the Federal Reserve's point man on electronic payments. “It's slower than what many of us thought,” Richard Oliver, executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the …

Nearly 18 months after President Bush signed into law the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), regulators are still struggling to come up with rules to guide financial institutions and payment processors in blocking payments to online gaming sites. And if comments from the financial industry are any …

One year after its launch, an option that lets merchants deposit checks electronically in centralized locations by converting the paper items into automated clearing house debits is growing more slowly than expected, according to a payments executive who led the effort to write the rules for the new option. Back-office …

Visa Inc.'s current slogan is “Life Takes Visa,” but now it's “Wall Street Takes Visa.” After raising a record $17.3 billion late Tuesday by pricing its initial public offering of stock at $44 per share, above its target range of $37 to $42 per share, Visa's stock opened on the …

Bankrupt Solidus Networks Inc., which does business under the Pay By Touch name, is ending all of its fingerprint-based biometrics operations effective late Wednesday, the company announced Wednesday afternoon. In a news release, the San Francisco-based firm said that at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time March 19, one second before midnight, …

Not only do mobile payments between individuals constitute a strong market opportunity in themselves, but they also lay the groundwork for mobile payments to merchants, according to James Van Dyke, founder and principal of Javelin Strategy & Research, which this week released a research report on the mobile person-to-person (P2P) …