Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

Electronic point-of-sale transactions secured by biometric scans may get a boost now that Pay By Touch Inc. has switched on processing service in 204 Jewel-Osco stores in the Chicago area as well as in the rest of Illionois, and in Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The San Francisco company's latest implementation …

In the spin-the-bottle game of assessing blame for the massive debit card breach that has compromised an estimated 600,000 accounts, point-of-sale software developer Fujitsu Transaction Solutions Inc. late last week suddenly found itself the recipient of unwelcome publicity when its name came up in a Visa USA alert about card …

In news that should interest those in the U.S electronic transactions business who are contemplating the possible effects of regulation of card interchange pricing, a new study shows that an increasing number of merchants in Australia?which three years ago introduced regulation of the fees merchants pay acquirers on card payments–are …

NACHA's proposed new product for Internet transactions, which it is proposing to test later this year (Digital Transactions News, March 15), could unleash powerful competitive forces among banks if it becomes a commercial payment application, an expert observer notes. Banks that choose to allow their customers to pay online merchants …

Few people know First Data Corp. better than David P. Bailis. Starting in 1989, he worked on everything from health-care payments to e-commerce and held titles as diverse as general counsel and chief administrative officer. He retired in 2001 to dabble in his own financial-services consulting businesses. But he came …

Security experts warn that the recently exposed case of widespread debit card fraud could jeopardize the growth of PIN debit. Debit card transactions secured by PINs have been growing by 20% or more annually in recent years, more than twice as fast as credit cards. “I think it is a …

The wild popularity of song downloads has not only helped make a case for micropayments processing, it has drawn wireless carriers into the market with the idea that consumers will pay significantly more than the standard online rate of 99 cents per track for the convenience of loading songs over …

A recruitment effort began today to find banks, billers, and merchants to participate in a pilot of a new system by which consumers would be able to make payments on the Internet through the automated clearing house. Sponsored by NACHA, the Herndon, Va.-based organization that sets rules for the ACH, …

A new form of automated clearing house payment that merchants could use to convert checks into electronic funds transfers could become a reality by September. A proposal from NACHA for so-called back-office conversion, which would allow businesses to collect consumer checks from points of sale and convert them later on …

The widening damage from the unfolding debit card hacking incident is challenging the conventional wisdom that PIN-based debit cards are inherently more secure than credit cards, which rely on signatures?though it still doesn't make a case for chip cards. That's according to one expert whose latest estimates are that this …

Google Inc., whose recent moves to create an online-payments service for use on some of its own platforms have stirred considerable speculation about its ambitions in electronic transactions, will launch a service soon that will compete with existing e-commerce payment marks like PayPal, says a source familiar with the matter. …

A new tactic has been discovered that lets fraudsters keep their online crimes going even as authorities are identifying and shutting down phishing sites. RSA Security Inc., whose RSA Cyota Anti-Fraud Command Center discovered the new tactic, says it is called a smart redirection attack and is intended to make …

In three out of four European consumer tests of mobile television, more than half of the users said they'd be willing to pay for TV content on their handhelds, according to pilot results released today by Nokia, whose phones were involved in all four pilots. The sums these participants said …

More banks are reissuing debit cards as suspect transactions pop up throughout the United States and other countries, according to media reports this week. Investigators believe many of the transactions could be related to a security breach at a merchant facility in California that happened late last year, but the …

In an indication of the rapid growth of image exchange, the nation's largest network reports its average daily volume soared 47.3% in February, to just over 1 million items, over the average in January. This represents the first time The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC's SVPCO unit has reached the …

In a new twist on stored-value plastic, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is issuing Visa-branded debit cards to low-income recipients of tax refunds. Working with Volunteer Income Tax Assistance offices in 16 cities, Chase expects the cards to help recipients who qualify for refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) …

Sales of high-tech products such as wireless and Internet Protocol payment terminals helped VeriFone Holdings Inc. post a 21% revenue gain in its first fiscal 2006 quarter, but merchants with limited needs also helped out. In an analysts' conference call late Thursday afternoon, chairman and chief executive Douglas G. Bergeron …

A small San Diego company is working on a new type of transaction card that combines the characteristics of a compact disk and a mag-stripe card, allowing consumers to perform both credit and debit transactions online as well as at physical points of sale. U.S. Encode Corp., incorporated in 2002, …

The idea of merging financial-services kiosks with ATMs will be tested this spring when Info Touch Technologies Corp., operator of the TIO kiosk network, and ATM deployer Cardtronics Inc. begin driving some 40 machines specially fitted to dispense cash withdrawals and perform kiosk functions such as bill payments. The machines …

Some 73% of homeowner-insurance and auto-insurance customers would be willing to pay their premiums online, yet most of them pay with cash or check and nearly all of them still receive their bills in the mail, according to a new survey. The survey, which points to a significant opportunity for …