Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals

A new guidance from federal banking regulators calling traditional user names and passwords “inadequate” for online banking could lead to a major push for strong authentication next year. The guidance, released last month by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, recommends what it calls multi-factor authentication, or identification systems involving …

U.S. transaction volume for American Express Co. grew nearly 19% in the third quarter, to $89 billion, over the year-ago period, the New York-based travel-and-entertainment company reported. Its U.S. card base increased 10%, to 42 million, of which 31.9 million are so-called basic cards. The U.S. accounts for nearly three-quarters …

Some 59% of adults, or an estimated 131 million people?either bought or received a gift card over the year from August 2004 to August 2005, a study released today reveals. In part, this has meant that the electronic stored value cards are gaining popularity as gifts for a more diverse …

Widespread publicity surrounding the huge data breach at CardSystems Solutions Inc., coupled with a movement among the states to require disclosure of data compromises, is driving business for companies specializing in data security. “Consumers are up in arms about enterprises not taking security seriously enough,” says Karim Toubba, vice president …

PayPal Inc. may be trying to process more transactions for e-commerce sites independent of its parent company, giant online auctioneer eBay Inc., but its latest quarterly figures indicate it still depends on eBay's auction activity for 69% of its transaction volume, a ratio that has remained virtually unchanged for months. …

The United Kingdom's Office of Fair Trading today said interchange fees paid by Visa acquirers to Visa issuers in the U.K. are anti-competitive, an action that could lead to regulatory action against the fee structure. In what it calls a “statement of objections,” the OFT said Visa's interchange structure, formally …

PayPal Inc. will use the transaction gateway it is buying from VeriSign Inc. for $370 million to thrust itself even more deeply into the business of acquiring transactions for small off-eBay Internet merchants, a senior executive for the transaction-processing unit of eBay Inc. tells Digital Transactions News. PayPal, which this …

Pay By Touch Solutions, which earlier this week said it will buy the assets of CardSystems Solutions Inc. for an undisclosed price (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 17), plans to rely on the Atlanta processor's links with some 27 independent sales organizations to help sell its biometric-payments product to tens of …

Pay By Touch Solutions, which said over the weekend it will buy the assets of troubled card processor CardSystems Solutions Inc. for an undisclosed price, apparently trumped an earlier bid for the same assets from CyberSource Corp. CyberSource, which withdrew on Saturday the offer it had made Sept. 23, says …

So-called expedited bill payments are rapidly growing in volume in the U.S., and are also becoming increasingly electronic as remote-payment channels like the Internet gain transaction share from traditional walk-in channels. That's one conclusion TowerGroup, a Needham, Mass.-based payments-research firm, has come to in two studies released this week. Expedited …

The number of unique e-mail campaigns sent as part of phishing frauds fell in August to 13,776, almost 400 fewer than in July and the lowest number since March, according to statistics released today by the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of payments processors, software vendors, and law-enforcement agencies that …

Financial institutions lost an estimated $546 million to debit card fraud in 2004, with fraud rates running much higher on signature-based cards than on cards secured with PINs, according to study released this week. Banks lost $345 million in fraud committed on ATMs, while fraud on signature-debit cards cost them …

More than two-thirds of treasury professionals within businesses that sell to consumers favor capping card interchange fees, according to a survey released today by the Association for Financial Professionals. Moreover, nearly three-quarters of these executives would trade rewards programs for lower interchange rates, even if their own companies lost incentives. …

An Internet payments processor founded early this year is looking to tap into underserved niche markets like schools, service companies, and other small businesses with what it bills as an inexpensive and easy-to-use application. My Payment Network Inc., Corte Madera, Calif., just began operation in August but hopes to be …

PayPal Inc. will acquire the online payments gateway business of Verisign Inc. for $370 million under an agreement reached today by VeriSign and eBay Inc., Paypal's parent company. The deal, which is expected to close before year's end, also includes a multi-year agreement under which eBay will invest in VeriSign …

This week's announced integration of giant merchant acquirers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. by their respective owners (Digital Transactions News, Oct. 5) creates a single entity of unprecedented scale?more than $500 billion in annual bank card charge volume through 13 billion transactions in the U.S. and Canada?but one …

In a statement released today, Retail Decisions PLC confirmed it is seeking to buy an unnamed company “whose key activities are complementary to those of ReD.” In confirming what it called a “market rumor” about a pending transaction, the U.K.-based transaction processor and Internet payments gateway, which operates a U.S. …

Internet retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. will likely begin accepting payments cleared through the automated clearing house from at least a portion of its customer base, possibly by the end of this month, says a source familiar with the matter. This source, who asked to remain anonymous, says the move would …

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and First Data Corp. have come to terms on the long-awaited merger of acquiring-service providers Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech L.P. in a deal that will create a behemoth processor handling 13.1 billion electronic transactions annually. According to a news release distributed this afternoon by …

The ranks of major retailers suing the bank card networks over interchange swelled by one today when Publix Super Markets Inc. announced it had filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Visa USA and MasterCard International. The Lakeland, Fla.-based grocery chain's suit alleges the practice of setting interchange by the two …