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Despite just 10% of U.S. merchant terminals being capable of accepting EMV chip cards today, 60% of all terminals likely will be EMV-enabled by 2015, according to a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin also expects U.S. issuers will convert the bulk of their credit, debit, and prepaid …
Read More »As Deadline Looms, Treasury Launches PR Campaign to Push Electronic Benefits
With a crucial deadline just five months away, the U.S. Department of the Treasury is blanketing the country this month with press releases urging recipients of Social Security and other benefits by check to adopt electronic payment. In the campaign, which started last week, the agency is sending out releases …
Read More »P2P Momentum Picks up Steam in Tandem with Nascent Real-Time Settlement Trend
The market for person-to-person payments, which has percolated on low heat for several years, is showing signs of turning up the temperature. As an example of how far the market has come, the two major P2P payments networks, Fiserv Inc.’s Popmoney and clearXchange, a system unveiled last year by Bank …
Read More »USAT Strikes a Deal With Visa, But No Word About a Fix for Small-Ticket Debit Interchange
In what amounts to a reminder about an unanticipated consequence of the Durbin Amendment debit card regulations, USA Technologies Inc. (USAT) reported Wednesday that it had extended its agreement with Visa Inc. that provides the vending-machine payment network operator with favorable pricing on small debit transactions. The news wasn’t a …
Read More »Mobile Can Generate Wide Range of Fees for Banks on New Services, Speakers Say
It’s time for bankers to stop looking at mobile technology merely as a cost cutter and start using it to make money, said speakers at a retail-banking technology conference on Tuesday. Banks that add a variety of new services to their mobile offerings ranging from in-store bar-code scanning to expedited …
Read More »Groupon Supplements Its New Payment Service With the iPad-based Breadcrumb System
n Online daily-deal leader Groupon Inc. followed up on its big payments announcement of last month with Wednesday’s national rollout of its Breadcrumb service, a point-of-sale system for restaurants, cafes, and bars centered on Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet computer. n Breadcrumb itself is not a payments service, but is …
Read More »Debit Card Rewards Hang Tough After One Year of Durbin Interchange Caps
The obituaries for debit card rewards may be premature. Of the 100 largest issuers of debit cards ranked by debit purchase volume, 37 now offer a rewards program, down from 52 three years ago. But 19 issuers with $10 billion or more in assets still offer a program, despite a …
Read More »AmEx And Wal-Mart Pursue the ‘Unhappily Banked’ with Their New Bluebird Prepaid Card
In a play for the business of what an American Express Co. executive calls “the unhappily banked,” AmEx and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Monday introduced their Bluebird prepaid card for U.S. customers of the world’s largest retailer. The card not only expands the consumer markets that AmEx, normally associated with …
Read More »Wal-Mart Just One of Many Merchants Behind MCX, Best Buy Exec Says
Merchant Customer Exchange, the planned mobile-payments network by and for retailers, is more than an interchange play controlled by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to an executive whose company is represented on the nascent network’s board of directors. Stephanie Swain, senior director of financial services at electronics retailer Best Buy Co. …
Read More »FIS Heats up Faster Funds Trend with Its PayNet Real-Time Network
The nascent market for faster funds transfers, which has been on the boil all year, heated up further this week with Fidelity National Information Services Inc.’s announcement of its real-time PayNet network. The new system, which relies on FIS’s NYCE Payments Network LLC debit switch, is live with 200 FIS …
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