Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank said today it will reimburse its customers for ATM fees they incur when they use other banks' ATMs anywhere in the world. The program, which begins Sept. 1, means the bank's 2 million retail-banking customers will receive rebates for ATM surcharges as well as the so-called foreign …

In the latest of a series of moves to open its network to outside card issuers and transaction processors, Discover Financial Services LLC on Wednesday said Discover Network will begin processing transactions for JCB International Credit Card Co. Ltd. some time next year. In 2008, Discover cardholders will be able …

When online auction giant eBay Inc. barred Google Checkout from its marketplace, the move led to widespread industry speculation that eBay, which owns rival online payment processor PayPal, was discriminating against the weeks-old Google Inc. payment product. But a PayPal executive tells Digital Transactions News eBay's action had nothing to …

Convinced that banks are ready to upgrade ATM capability to sell more products and services, San Jose, Calif.-based Infonox Inc. says it is piloting marketing-savvy machines with unnamed clients and plans to have at least one commercial deployment in progress within six months. “There's a dramatic shift in the banking …

Newly private iPayment Inc. this week reported a 12% increase in operating profits despite single-digit growth in charge volume. Nonetheless, the big Nashville, Tenn.-based independent sales organization posted a net loss of $5.81 million on expenses related to its May 10 management-led buyout, compared with net income of $7.73 million …

Pursuing a 2-year-old push to sell acceptance to online merchants, PayPal Inc. reached a milestone in that effort with this week's high-profile signing of bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Web site. The nation's largest bookstore chain's e-commerce operation should help the San Jose, Calif.-based online transaction processor further reduce its …

Responding to the rapid build-up in popularity of gift cards, a federal banking regulator has issued guidelines telling banks what information they should disclose?and how they should disclose it?to both the buyers and ultimate users of the prepaid plastic. The new rules, which bear on matters such as expiration dates, …

Seeking to address industry uncertainty about its guidelines on online-banking security, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council this week released a set of clarifications it says addresses “a representation” of questions it has received from banks, technology companies, and banking examiners. This latest document from the FFIEC, an agency that …

More and more consumers now expect their last-minute bill payments to be credited to their accounts with near instantaneous effect. And, increasingly, billers and processors are meeting that expectation?or at least laying plans to. “The trend is toward real-time [bill payment],” says Dave Fortney, senior vice president for electronic presentment …

Discover Network's recent certification of ViVOtech card readers indicates Discover is moving ahead with a contactless card program, but the No. 4 general-purpose card network is staying mum about the details. Discover says it has certified several readers from Santa Clara, Calif.-based ViVOtech Inc., a specialist in contactless payment hardware, …

Against a backdrop of an increasing number of online transactions requiring manual checking by Internet merchants to control fraud, transaction-gateway provider CyberSource Corp. this week introduced a service that lets merchants pinpoint customers' locations and write business rules to control whether, in light of this information, orders should be fulfilled. …

All-electronic check image exchange got a boost this week with the addition of another large regional bank-holding company, Pittsburgh-based The PNC Financial Services Group, to SVPCO-Electronic Clearing Services' image-exchange network. Meanwhile, SVPCO reported today that it processed 3 million average daily items in July, up 17% from June's average. The …

Looking to increase the number of debit cards tied to flexible-spending accounts and other tax-advantaged health-care plans, MasterCard Worldwide has introduced a system that the Purchase, N.Y.-based bank card network says collects item-level detail and provides real-time substantiation at the point of sale. Substantiation, required by Internal Revenue Service rules …

Some 24.6 million U.S. consumers bought a ring tone in the second quarter of 2006, and they showed a clear preference for so-called real tones, or master tones, over polyphonic and mono ring tones, according to research released today. Ring tones for mobile phones, which are snippets of popular songs, …

New consolidated industry data show the number of substitute checks, or image replacement documents (IRDs), flowing through image-exchange networks surpassed 100 million for the first time in June, but the share of paper relative to all image-exchange volume is declining. According to the Electronic Check Clearing House Organization (ECCHO), the …

While PIN debit transactions at the point of sale are growing at a torrid pace, the payment application faces major hurdles when it comes to future growth, according to a research report released this week. PIN debit has registered annual growth rates between 35% and 38% since 2003, outpacing the …

MasterCard Inc., reporting quarterly results for the first time since its initial public offering in May, said it lost $310.5 million in the three-month period ended June 30, compared to a gain of $120.2 million in the second quarter of 2005. One-time expenses, including a $400.3 million cost for 13.5 …

American Express Co. cardholders paid their AmEx bills nearly 100 million times in 2005 using the Internet, Judson C. Linville, president of the New York City-based firm's U.S. Consumer Card Services Group, told analysts Wednesday. “The Web has fundamentally transformed our business in the last few years,” Linville said at …

Debit cards continue to find favor with consumers for point-of-sale purchases, results of the latest annual payments survey by First Data Corp.'s Star electronic funds transfer network shows. And recent security breaches involving PIN-based debit cards don't yet seem to have dented PIN debit's popularity. According to Star's 2005/2006 Consumer …

Wireless provider Virgin Mobile USA LLC on Monday introduced a reloadable prepaid card that will allow its 4 million mostly young subscribers to pay for goods and services at stores and on the Web, pay bills, and send cash to one another. The card, a Visa-branded product Virgin calls the …