Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

PayPal Inc, which earlier this month announced its foray into mobile payments based on short-message service transmissions (Digital Transactions News, April 6), continues to build transaction volume at double-digit rates in its core e-commerce business, though it remains dependent on parent eBay Inc. for the bulk of its traffic. In …

Leading payment card processor First Data Corp., in the midst of a reorganization and spin-off of its Western Union money-transfer business, late Thursday reported first-quarter earnings of $373.3 million, down slightly from $374.5 million in 2005's first quarter. Revenues grew 10% to $2.70 billion from the year-earlier period's $2.47 billion. …

More banks than ever now levy surcharges on ATM transactions performed by non-customers, and the fee is now higher than ever, according to new data released this week by Bankrate.com, a service of Bankrate Inc. The average ATM surcharge is now $1.60, up from $1.54 in the fall of 2005, …

Putting his best spin on a tough situation, processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) chief executive Philip W. Tomlinson today said he regards the credit card industry’s top three issuers as prospects for future business, even as all three begin or plan to take tens of millions of accounts off …

Speaking to an audience of merchant processors, acquirers, and independent sales organizations, Visa USA's president and chief executive today promised the giant bank card network will become more open to non-issuers and responsive to their concerns, including matters related to operating regulations and data security. Appointed only nine months ago …

A year after it acquired the 50% interest in Vital Processing Services that it didn't already own, Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) has renamed the merchant-acquiring processor TSYS Acquiring Solutions and announced several new product lines. The Columbus, Ga.-based company, which is known primarily as a processor for card-issuing banks, …

The number of consumers who use biller Web sites to pay their bills continues to outpace the number who use bank sites, but the latter users are more active transactors, according to recent survey and online-tracking research from comScore Networks Inc. Overall, the online bill-pay market grew 36% in 2005, …

Processors of stored-value transactions are noting a new development that's driving growth in payroll cards, perhaps the hottest prepaid card market: Increasingly, employers are issuing them to workers with checking accounts and other established banking relationships, according to an article set to appear in the May issue of Digital Transactions …

Visa USA's announcement this week of a new program to foster card transactions in the growing category of small-value payments would seem at first blush to be the bank card network's answer to some observers' long-held contention that the card associations should create incentives for the emerging technology of contactless …

The chief executive of the company holding the largest market share of installed readers for contactless payments predicts the technology, assisted by near-field communication (NFC) capability, will move rapidly from the physical point of sale to e-commerce. Mohammad Khan, president and founder of ViVOtech Inc., which makes electronic wallets for …

NACHA's long-expected pilot project to test Internet payments to retailers and billers will get under way early next year and will run for 12 months, the Herndon, Va.-based organization said Monday. In a conference call it held to explain the new automated clearing house payment application and discuss the rationale …

Debitman Card Inc.'s new chief executive sees no significant strategic changes ahead for the PIN debit network, though he says some new products are likely within a year, possibly including a stored-value offering. “I think the strategy is spot-on,” says Michael Grossman, a former Intuit Inc. executive and most recently …

VeriFone Holdings Inc.'s proposed $793 million acquisition of rival Lipman Electronics Engineering Ltd. will give the U.S.'s leading payment terminal maker access to more countries and the fast-growing wireless-terminal segment, a processing analyst tells Digital Transactions News. “The advantage for VeriFone is to get into more countries offshore,” says Jamie …

Boulder, Colo.-based Combined Payments Inc.'s FastLane, a new network that converts driver's licenses into loyalty and payment cards, Thursday announced that it had secured its first advertiser as part of a point-of-sale program that will share revenues with participating merchants. The $2 million deal involves the La Jolla, Calif., office …

PayPal Inc. today officially joined the race for mobile-phone transactions, announcing the commercial availability of its much-anticipated PayPal Mobile service. The product, word of which leaked two weeks ago while the San Jose, Calif.-based processor was testing it with its own employees and those of parent company eBay Inc., comes …

Seeking to remove a roadblock standing in the way to eventual mass consumer usage of mobile phones equipped with a form of contactless technology called near-field communication (NFC), MasterCard International this week unveiled a service that will allow cell-phone users to download their account data and other critical information to …

Shipments of contactless-payment transponders–the cards, keyfobs, and other devices consumers use to make radio-wave payments at the point of sale?will explode in 2006, reaching 45 million units, up from 13 million last year, according to ABI Research, an Oyster Bay, N.Y., research firm that follows radio-frequency-identification technology markets. Most of …

The country's largest image-exchange network reported today it handled more volume in the year's first quarter than it processed in all of 2005, while traffic reached new heights in March. Average daily volume at SVPCO's Image Payments Network, which links a dozen banks as well as the Federal Reserve for …

In a move that quintuples the number of ATMs in its network, Citigroup Inc. today announced it will brand machines in 5,500 7-Eleven Inc. convenience stores in 31 states. The ATMs, which will bear the Citibank brand, will allow customers to withdraw cash without incurring surcharges, a feature the bank …

Authorities nabbed seven individuals this week as part of the U.S. Secret Service's newly disclosed Operation Rolling Stone undercover effort against cybercrime and payment card fraud, and more arrests are expected, a Secret Service spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News. Though the Secret Service is being cautious about releasing details of …