By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Retailers considering or starting a digital gift card program may do well to study the programs offered by Sephora USA Inc., Starbucks Corp., The Home Depot Inc., Dunkin’ Donuts, and Amazon.com Inc. Their digital gift card programs ranked at the top of a roster of 100 retailers …

• Merchant processor Global Payments Inc. said it will provide a Bluetooth reader capable of EMV and contactless mobile payments to Mary Kay Cosmetics Ltd. consultants in Canada. The reader works with Apple and Android smart phones and tablets. • Global payments platform Payza has integrated Canada’s Interac debit network, …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews Mobile payments continue to garner merchant interest as more retailers are accepting mobile wallets, research shows. Meanwhile, drug-store chain Walgreens is making its loyalty program available to users of Android Pay. Thirty-four percent of small businesses accept mobile payments like Apple Pay and Android Pay, finds the …

• Guardian Analytics, a fraud-risk technology vendor, introduced what it says is the industry’s first real-time service to detect fraud in same-day automated clearing house transactions. Same-day ACH is scheduled to begin processing Sept. 23 with ACH credits, leaving some experts concerned that originating and receiving institutions will have less …

By John Stewart@DTPaymentNews As the automated clearing house network gets set to start a process that will over time speed up credit and debit transactions to

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews The Third Party Payment Processors Association is stepping in to lend support to Operation Choke Point, a federal government initiative targeting high-risk merchants via their payments providers. The

By Jim Daly@DTPaymentNews Web- and mobile-based banking and payment services still have large room for growth, although online bill payment seems to have hit an adoption ceiling, according to a new survey of banks’ usage of software-based services for consumers. Chicago-based investment firm First Analysis Securities Corp. interviewed executives from …

• Apparel retailer Eddie Bauer LLC said payment cards used at its more than 350 U.S. and Canadian stores from Jan. 2 to July 17 may have been compromised by malware placed on its point-of-sale systems, KrebsOnSecurity.com reported. The malware has been removed; Eddie Bauer said the “intrusion was part …

By John Stewart @DTPaymentNews When it comes to faster payments, most of the U.S. payments industry’s focus lately has been on the glamorous option of real-time settlement, but sentiment is beginning to emerge that says same-day payments may just be fast enough. Those who make that argument point out that …

By Kevin Woodward@DTPaymentNews In the quest to position their credit cards as the preferred payment method in mobile wallets, issuers may want to target consumers in the right demographic group who have preferences that match what the card offers, if the newly released “J.D. Power 2016 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study” is …