Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

The latest U.S. trial of contactless payment involving mobile phones and near-field communication technology (NFC), set to begin Jan. 10 in New York City, will combine key elements of the two other U.S. pilots mounted so far, and represents the first in which users can access credit cards issued by …

Mutual need brought Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO) and Intuit Inc. together in the $142 million deal, announced last week, that will make Camarillo, Calif-based processor ECHO part of Intuit, Mountain View, Calif., some time in the first quarter (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 15). Intuit, marketer of the popular QuickBooks …

Intuit Inc. has notched yet another acquisition calculated to augment its widely used accounting software with electronic-payments capability by agreeing to pay $142 million in cash to buy Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO), a publicly held, Camarillo, Calif.-based processor of card and automated clearing house transactions. The deal, which is …

PayPal Inc., the online payment service of online auction firm eBay Inc., has signed another big company in its quest to expand beyond eBay users, and the processor says more such clients are coming next year. This week, Monster, the leading online job-search and recruitment service, said it has begun …

Online payments processor ClickandBuy this week announced what it calls “Version 2.0” of its digital-content platform, which includes an electronic wallet, long-awaited billing through two major U.S. phone companies, lower merchant pricing, and a new name, to boot. Parent company Firstgate Internet AG of Zug, Switzerland, has chucked the ampersand …

A new tactic used by Internet fraudsters is causing a dramatic upsurge in the number of Web sites hosting phishing attacks. The number of fake sites phishing fraudsters use to con Internet users into giving up PINs, passwords, and other confidential information soared to 37,444 in October, up nearly nine-fold …

Hoping to push up compliance with its data-security rules, Visa USA on Tuesday announced first-ever incentives?including cash payments–to go along with new penalties for acquiring banks that serve the 1,200 largest Visa-accepting merchants. The carrot-and-stick package, intended to get acquirers to bring more merchants into compliance with the Payment Card …

Digital content like video, games, and music delivered as part of cell-phone subscriber plans may be getting plenty of attention these days, but it's turning out to be a harder sell than many mobile-commerce enthusiasts had thought. Some 72.5% of respondents in a survey of more than 2,500 U.S. wireless …

Visa, MasterCard, and Canada's national debit network are preparing to launch a test in Ontario for a Canadian chip and PIN system that its backers hope will ultimately eliminate the magnetic stripe on all cards and replace signatures on all Visa and MasterCard credit cards. The test will start next …

Big banks get most of the attention when the topic turns to check imaging at ATMs. Now credit unions are about to get into the act. Ontario, Calif.-based Co-Op Financial Services, formerly known as the Co-Op Network, plans to make check imaging available to its nearly 2,000 credit-union members in …

Payment processor eFunds Corp. will take over the processing of American Express Co.'s fast-growing retail and gift card portfolio in 2007 and 2008 under a deal announced Wednesday. The deal, financial terms of which were not released, is the biggest prepaid contract to date for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based eFunds, which focuses …

Google Inc.'s decision to extend Checkout's offer of free processing to the end of 2007, which it announced Wednesday, could help the 6-month-old online payments service attract more merchants at a time when it's not only up against heavy-duty competition, but also facing skepticism from some online sellers. The new …

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. is working on a technology platform that would support multiple accounting and transaction functions on a single card, the processor's chairman and chief executive revealed in a presentation last week. Speaking to an audience of merchants, processors, and bankers interested in converting small-value cash payments to …

A small technology company that has made a name for itself with its aggressive and successful litigation defending a pair of patents covering check imaging was dealt a setback late last week when the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected all of the claims set out in those patents. …

Software maker Intuit Inc.'s pending acquisition of online-banking services provider Digital Insight Corp. is mostly a story about Intuit expanding its services and finding new markets for its popular QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Quicken financial-software programs. But, according to one analyst, remote deposit capture?and a processor that offers the service?could get …

Morgan Stanley's Discover Financial Services LLC payment network on Tuesday announced its certification of a contactless card reader from On Track Innovations Ltd., Discover's second such announcement in three months. But Riverwoods, Ill.-based Discover still hasn't revealed its larger contactless plans. “There's nothing we can talk about right now,” a …

Small-ticket electronic transactions, particularly those at unattended machines, may get a boost with a proposal that would relax a provision of Regulation E regarding receipts for consumers. The Federal Reserve Board this week requested public comment on the proposal, which would exempt transactions of $15 or less from Reg E's …

While American consumers were flocking to the stores on Friday and whipping out their credit and debit cards for payment, their Canadian counterparts were forced to find cash, their checkbooks, or to come back later because the network of the nation's largest merchant acquirer went down for two and a …

E-commerce sites held up well under an onslaught of shoppers on what has become known as Cyber Monday, widely considered one of the heaviest traffic days of the year for Internet retailers, says Keynote Systems Inc. Keynote, which measures Web site performance, said Monday the more than 30 sites it …

A new electronic check-conversion application set to go live in March at retail and other check-accepting businesses could become one of the fastest-growing products ever introduced for the automated clearing house (ACH) network, generating 425 million transactions in 2007, predicts a new study from Boston-based market researcher Celent LLC. The …