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The Isis mobile-payments platform plans to go live at about 1,000 merchant locations in each of the two cities it has targeted for what it calls a “soft launch” this summer, according to officials with the company. While Isis will not identify the merchants it is talking to, it is …
Read More »Threat of Identity Theft Stalks Users of Social Media and Smart Phones
After bottoming out in 2010, identity fraud rose nearly 13% last year, according to new findings from Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin’s findings also associate two hallmarks of the tech-oriented early 21st Century, social networks and smart phones, with a higher risk of identity fraud. Pleasanton, Calif.-based Javelin surveyed 5,022 …
Read More »Group Claims Consumers Don’t Expect Retailers to Pass on Durbin Savings
The war of words between the payments industry on the one side and retailers on the other side continued this week when a lobbying group backed by big banks and payment card networks released survey results claiming that only a tiny fraction of consumers believe retailers are passing on their …
Read More »Processor Execs Echo Merchant Sentiment in Favor of PINs for Chip Cards
Some of the nation’s biggest merchants have been adamant for months that they prefer EMV payments with PINs, not signatures, and on Thursday they were joined in that sentiment by a panel of representatives from some of the country’s largest processors. In the face of tepid support, at best, for …
Read More »The IRS Hears Merchants’ Pleas About Card Receipts, But Will Taxable Sales Go Unreported?
Responding to pressure from retailers, the Internal Revenue Service this month announced that it would give merchants a pass on what merchants feared would be a new hassle when filling out their tax returns. The change will reduce the compliance burden on merchants, but it also could undercut the government’s …
Read More »Facebook Seeks New Revenues with a Promotion for Its Virtual Currency
Behind all the buzz about social payments and virtual currency is an often-overlooked fact: few social-network members today actually use digital money. The antidote for this ailment, according to executives in the social-networking world, is something they call monetization, which is simply a term for tactics that generate revenues from …
Read More »Mocapay Expects To Hit Its Stride with a Revamped Business Model And Technology
Mocapay Inc., one of the earliest startups in the mobile-payments space, finally is poised to go national with new partners, a different pricing model, and a broadened set of technological options that its president says makes payments by smart phone easier for merchants and consumers. Mocapay launched in 2006 and …
Read More »Google Announces a Fix for Prepaid Flaw As Security Holes Plague Its Wallet
Google Inc. late on Tuesday announced a solution for a security flaw in its mobile wallet that allows hackers to gain access to wallet owners’ prepaid accounts. Google also said it had, on Monday afternoon, restored the ability to load funds on new prepaid cards. In response to the flaw, …
Read More »Plenty of Tests And Contracts, But No High-Speed Route to Contactless Payments
The nation’s largest transit operators are moving toward so-called open-fare payment systems that will enable riders to pay fares with just a tap of a contactless bank card at a subway turnstile or a terminal on a bus. Replacement of old fare systems, however, is not going at nearly the …
Read More »Now Taking EMV Cards at Some U.S. Stores, Wal-Mart Prods EFT Networks to Get in the Game
With both Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. now on the record with plans to encourage the adoption of EMV chip card and mobile payments in the U.S, it seems all but certain that the magnetic-stripe payment card’s days are numbered. In fact, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. already is seeing some EMV …
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