Consumer revolving credit jumped 9.9% on an annualized basis in October, seasonally adjusted preliminary data from the Federal Reserve show. Revolving credit outstandings, most of which are credit card debt, hit $1.01 trillion, up 5.9% from $955.3 billion in October 2016. PayCargo LLC, an online-payment platform that allows shippers and carriers to …
Read More »BitPay Raises $30 Million and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/7/17
Valve Corp., which operates Steam, a popular gaming site, said it no longer is accepting Bitcoin because of the digital currency’s volatility and acceptance costs, which reached almost $20 in a transaction last week. Bitcoin processor BitPay Inc. said it raised $30 million in additional funding. In 2014, the company …
Read More »Chenault’s Parting Shot at Competitors and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/6/17
American Express Co. chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault said at an investor conference Tuesday that banks’ sale of their stakes in Mastercard and Visa through initial public offerings “was one of the biggest strategic blunders of the last 20 years,” according to Bloomberg. Chenault, who will retire in February, …
Read More »More Bank Investment in Real-Time Payments and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/5/17
Finastra, a banking-technology services firm, announced PNC Bank, a unit of The PNC Financial Services Group Inc., is using its services as part of the bank’s participation in RTP, the real-time payments service from The Clearing House. Fifty-percent of U.S. banks plan to increase their investments in real-time payment systems in …
Read More »First Data Completes BluePay Acquisition and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 12/1/17
Processor First Data Corp. completed its previously announced, $760 million acquisition of independent sales organization BluePay Holdings Inc. Payment-services provider Shift4 Corp. announced its EMV-certified services are now available to users of Posera Ltd.’s Maitre’D point-of-sale hospitality software. Infinite Peripherals launched the InfineaRetail Airline Edition point-of-sale suite of products. Mastercard …
Read More »BlueSnap Notes M-Payments Increase and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/30/17
B2 Processing Solutions launched the B2 PINPad Drivers, a product to help merchants migrate point-of-sale applications to EMV and contactless payments. Payments provider BlueSnap Inc. said its merchants experienced a 125% increase in mobile-wallet use on Thanksgiving, 124% increases on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and a 79% increase …
Read More »Fime Gets Discover Accreditation and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/29/17
Payment consulting and testing firm Fime obtained D-Payment Application Specification (D-PAS) accreditation from Discover Financial Services for the Pulse debit network, meaning Fime’s EMV chip card service for merchant acquirers is now available on all of Discover’s networks that include Discover and Diners Club International in addition to Pulse. SalePoint …
Read More »InComm Card Available in the ‘Pays’ and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/28/17
Research firm comScore Inc. said Thanksgiving e-commerce spending on desktop devices totaled $1.57 billion, a 22% increase from last year. Black Friday spending was $2.36 billion, a 20% increase from 2016. ComScore said 115 million consumers visited online retail sites on Thanksgiving, with 61% of them only visiting using a …
Read More »TD Bank Releases Holiday Shopping Survey and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/27/17
On average, U.S. consumers will spend $500 on holiday purchases this season, found the TD Bank Merry Money Holiday Spending Survey. Most consumers could overspend. In the past, 76% of respondents said they overspent their past holiday budgets by an average of $263. Rakuten Marketing said its sales in the …
Read More »iPayment Buys Leaders Merchant Services and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/22/17
Merchant processor iPayment Inc. has agreed to acquire Leaders Merchant Services, an independent sales organization that has worked with iPayment since 2004. Terms were not disclosed. Electronics maker SparkFun Electronics developed an app for Android devices that can detect the likely presence of a credit card skimmer commonly found on …
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