Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, author of the now-famous amendment bearing his name that upended the debit card industry, made a figurative trip to court this week to show his support for retailers challenging the Federal Reserve Board’s final rule implementing his provision in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. In a friend of …
Read More »Major Merchant Backing, with Rewards, Helps Fuel Surge in ACH-Based Debit
An obscure transaction code used by the automated clearing house network for debit card payments is surging as major merchants adopt the payment method and offer significant rewards to customers who use it. The POS code, which refers to ACH debit entries initiated at an electronic terminal, accounted for 4.59 …
Read More »Late to the Wallet Wars, MasterCard Unveils a Service It Touts As Open, Flexible
Nearly a year after major U.S. rivals introduced mobile wallets, MasterCard Inc. officially entered the market on Monday with a service that aims to trump competing products by being open to a wide range of payment brands and by offering tools that can let third parties develop their own digital …
Read More »Visa Doubles Floor Limit for Credit And Debit at Grocery, Discount Stores
Visa Inc. in October will double the current $25 purchase limit in its Visa Easy Payment Service to $50 under which no signature or PIN entry will be required for credit and debit card transactions at grocery and discount stores. The network also is changing some chargeback procedures that it says will …
Read More »Big-Box Retailers Like Wal-Mart Remain Wary of Network EMV Plans
There’s no federal edict to replace fraud-prone magnetic-stripe credit and debit cards with the more secure EMV chip card, but the payment card networks have unveiled various plans in the past year to encourage U.S card issuers, merchant acquirers, and merchants to board the EMV train. Exactly how a U.S. …
Read More »Interlink Takes a Hit While Antitrust Officials Investigate Visa
Visa Inc.’s pricing plans for merchant acquirers in the wake of the Durbin Amendment have generated controversy in the acquiring industry, and now they’re attracting scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, the leading payment card network disclosed on Wednesday. Visa said in a regulatory filing that the DoJ’s Antitrust …
Read More »MasterCard Reports a Strong Quarter for Debit, Takes Issue with Fed’s Durbin Update
MasterCard Inc. on Wednesday posted continued strong growth in debit cards during the first quarter, including in fee revenue. The No. 2 U.S. card network also took issue with the findings of a Federal Reserve report released on Tuesday showing interchange for regulated card issuers has plunged since the Durbin …
Read More »A ‘Hard Core’ of Check Users Likely to Resist Inducements to Convert to E-Payments
For years, the growth of electronic payments has been fueled by the conversion of check writers into card users at the point of sale, but now those days may be coming to an end. Research, as well as the experience of one major retail chain, indicates the check writers who …
Read More »New Fed Data Give a Glimpse of the Durbin Amendment’s Early Effects
The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday released data about banks’ debit card interchange income now that the Durbin Amendment is in effect. Not surprisingly, the numbers show that interchange for regulated card issuers plunged. The nation’s leading retailer trade group took the occasion to decry the Fed, even though merchants …
Read More »Off to a Slow Start, a Database of Terminated ACH Originators Might Gain Traction Soon
One year after its creation, a database of merchants and processors that generate suspect automated clearing house transactions doesn’t have a whole lot of data yet. Backers of the Terminated Originator Database (TOD), however, expect the database to grow rapidly this year and next as word of the project spreads …
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