Two payment-services companies have separately introduced services designed to make it easier for merchants and consumers to engage in e-commerce and mobile commerce. Payments-and-authentication-services provider Jumio Inc.’s newest service aims to make it easier for consumers to shop using smart phones and tablets. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Jumio says its …
Read More »Cardtronics’ New Skyscraper ATMs Link a Mobile App With Merchant Rewards
Retail ATM network owner and operator Cardtronics Inc. is testing ATMs as tall as nine feet that offer discounts to consumers when they withdraw cash at stores with Cardtronics machines and then make a purchase using a smart-phone app to access the reward. The ATMs and rewards are part of …
Read More »COMMENTARY: How Passbook Positions Apple to Command—Not Just Align With—the Payments Industry
By Rick Oglesby, Double Diamond Payments Research With Apple Pay now confirmed to launch on Monday, we are closer to seeing the impact it will have on mobile-payments acceptance, technologies, and standards. In the meantime, much of the debate concerning Apple Inc.’s payments venture has missed a crucial point. While …
Read More »Merchant Processor TransFirst Trades Private-Equity Owners While IPO Put On Hold
Merchant acquirer TransFirst Inc. has a new owner. Private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners, San Francisco, is buying Hauppauge, N.Y.-based TransFirst for an undisclosed amount, TransFirst announced Monday. This summer, TransFirst, which has more than 200,000 merchants, had planned a partial initial public offering with its current owner, Welsh, Carson, Anderson …
Read More »COMMENTARY: How History Is Repeating Itself With Apple Pay
If you are an issuer of Visa or MasterCard, your deadline for participating in the Apple Pay service set to debut later this month has already passed. It was Tuesday, and issuers didn’t have much time to think about it (let alone perform a technical due diligence or negotiate terms). …
Read More »First Data Chief Bisignano Hails New Spirit of Innovation, Asks To Be ‘Graded’
A humble Frank Bisignano told top non-bank acquirer executives Thursday that his company, processing giant First Data Corp., wasn’t “always good” at listening to its clients and asked the audience to hold him “personally accountable” for the company’s performance in the coming year. Bisignano, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. …
Read More »Heartland CEO Predicts Apple Pay Will Force MCX To Abandon Mobile-Wallet Exclusivity
Never one to mince words, Bob Carr, chief executive of the big merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc., predicts that demand for Apple Inc.’s new Apple Pay mobile-payment service will force the retailer-controlled Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) to abandon a policy of requiring its members to accept only MCX’s CurrentC …
Read More »Discover Exec Warns Top ISO Execs They Face Loss of Relevance in Wake of Apps
The arrival of technology companies and other new players in the payments business has left merchant processors scratching their heads over how to work with these emerging brands. Companies like Apple Inc., which has the potential to change both consumer and merchant behavior, have sent independent sales organizations scrambling to …
Read More »MCX’s InComm Deal Might Give Currency To the Idea That Its Network Is Building Momentum
Prepaid card services provider InComm Holdings Inc. announced today that it has struck a “strategic partnership” with Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), parent firm of the fledgling mobile-payments network owned by merchants and recently branded as CurrentC. But exactly what the partnership will do for the long-aborning MCX is not clear. …
Read More »Banks’ Out-of-Network ATM Fees and Overdraft Fees Again Set Records
By Jim Daly Average out-of-network ATM fees set a record in 2014 for the eighth straight year by rising 5.3% to $4.35 per transaction, well above a 1.5% increase in 2013 but close to their 17-year average, according to Bankrate Inc.’s annual study of checking-account fees. Overdraft fees set a …
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