• In a study of more than 900,000 merchants, processor First Data Corp. says retail spending from Thanksgiving through CyberMonday (Nov. 28) grew 5.8% from year-earlier levels; brick-and-mortar retailers saw spending grow 4.1% while e-commerce spending jumped 14.3%. • European software firm Comtrade Digital Services has built an automated banking platform for the Viber messaging app, …
Read More »Digital Transactions December 2016
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/dt/201612/
Read More »Why Holiday Gift Card Loads Will Perk up
Retailers can expect a bump up in the dollars consumers load on closed-loop gift cards this holiday season as a festive spirit takes hold and more merchants favor the cards over holiday discounts, according to a forecast released last month by payments consultancy Mercator Advisory Group. “Retailers are expecting that …
Read More »Valued at a Lofty $9.2 Billion, E-Commerce Specialist Stripe Shows Where the Action Is
By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews Stripe Inc.’s latest funding round, in which the privately held San Francisco-based company nearly doubled its valuation to $9.2 billion, shows what startups can do if they’re innovating in the right sector of payments, experts say. Just six years old, Stripe provides tools for payments online …
Read More »MasterCard Debuts Fraud-Prevention Technology and other Digital Transactions News briefs
• Credit cards were implicated in 59% of all fraudulent online transactions for the period stretching from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, up from 49% for the same period last year and from 44% in 2014, according to data from iovation, a device-authentication company. Still, fraudulent traffic overall for the period …
Read More »Chip Cards Dominate Holiday Shopping So Far, While E-Commerce Gains Spending Share
By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews U.S. shoppers flooded into stores and online this past weekend—Macy’s Web site crashed on Black Friday from the crush—to find holiday gift deals, with many putting their chip cards to use, though e-commerce spending, where the fraud-prevention feature of the chip is immaterial, continues to increase. In …
Read More »Affirm Adds Four Integrations and other Digital Transactions News briefs
• Processor Jack Henry & Associates Inc. will resell the Zelle person-to-person payments service to its financial-institution clients under a new agreement with Zelle’s owner, Early Warning Services LLC. • Affirm Inc., whose technology allows consumers to pay over time for online purchases, said it is now integrated with four new e-commerce …
Read More »First Data Is Becoming an ‘Increasingly Competitive’ Processor, Report Says
By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Can First Data Corp. shake its reputation as the aircraft carrier of the payments industry, a behemoth processor that is anything but nimble? It can, according to a new report from a securities firm. “First Data becoming increasingly competitive,” says the headline in the report by Chicago-based …
Read More »Momentum Grows for Blockchain As Its Bitcoin Wallet Breaches the 10-Million Mark
By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews Buoyed by seismic political and financial events, the Bitcoin digital currency is picking up momentum in both its value and its adoption. Blockchain, a U.K. company that offers Bitcoin services, last week celebrated having issued 10 million wallets since its founding in 2011. That’s a doubling in …
Read More »With Payments Veteran Rawls at the Helm, iPayment Solicits Resellers To Boost Growth
By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews New York-based iPayment Holdings Inc. has named O.B. Rawls IV chief executive and president and charged the veteran payments executive with guiding the payments company’s plans to increase sales . Rawls, whose prior experience includes First Data Corp., also joins the iPayment board of directors. He has …
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