Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
It was an “I-told-you-so moment” Thursday morning for William A. Cooper, the outspoken chairman and chief executive of TCF Financial Corp. Cooper said many bankers dismissed TCF’s assertion that the Federal Reserve Board, in carrying out the dictates of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law’s Durbin Amendment, would cut debit card interchange …
Read More »Breach Investigations Show Alarming Advances In Malware
Hackers continue to improve malware, third-party vendors continue to serve their clients poorly when it comes to data security, and the evidence points to Russia as the single biggest source of attacks on databases. Those are some of the highlights in the new Global Security Report 2011 from Trustwave Holdings …
Read More »Eye on Mobile: Starbucks Pilot Goes National, Acculynk Goes Mobile, And Mitek Logs Clients
In the largest U.S. chainwide expansion yet seen in mobile payments, Starbucks Coffee Co. announced on Wednesday it is extending its proprietary, prepaid mobile payments pilot to all of its U.S. company-owned stores. The move brings the chain’s Starbucks Card Mobile App to almost 6,800 stores and increases the number …
Read More »Tenacious Cash Is Here for the Long Term, Report Says
Cash: It’s still everywhere electronic payments want to be. Despite decades of gains by credit and debit cards, electronic commerce, the automated clearing house, and now mobile payments, cash is hanging on and will do so for many years, according to new findings from Aite Group LLC. Consumers spent $1.20 …
Read More »Online Fraud Rate Drops, But ‘Cleaner’ Fraud Poses a Bigger Threat
Good news for online merchants: In 2010, for the second year in a row, fraud losses expressed as a percentage of revenue went down. They came to 0.9%, down about $600 million from 1.2% in 2009, according to the latest research from CyberSource Corp., a unit of Visa Inc. that …
Read More »Intuit, North American Bancard Bring Free Card Readers to Mobile Payments
Mobile payments are getting increasingly competitive, and this week the competition ratcheted up even more. Intuit Inc., maker of the QuickBooks accounting software for small businesses, is now offering a free credit card reader for smart phones to merchants using its GoPayment mobile service. Intuit also is waiving monthly service …
Read More »Acquirers Will Benefit from Durbin, But Gain Could be Short-Lived
In the wake of the Federal Reserve Board’s proposed interchange caps for debit cards, as well as Visa Inc.’s decision to introduce dual interchange tables for debit, much discussion has focused on the impact of radically reduced interchange income on issuing banks. But an often overlooked factor concerns just how …
Read More »The Treasury Department Tries Out a Tax-Refund Prepaid Card
Following through on a tax-season initiative it announced last September, the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday launched a pilot program that could enable more than half a million low- and moderate-income individuals to receive tax refunds via prepaid cards. Next week, the Treasury Department will begin sending letters to 600,000 …
Read More »Android Users More Interested in Mobile Financial Services, Report Shows
While the news in smart phones this week has been all about Verizon Wireless’s announcement that it will start marketing the iPhone next month, the news that may well be of more importance to mobile payments and mobile banking is the hot streak that Google Inc.’s Android operating system is …
Read More »VeriFone Details the Element of Risk in Its Planned Hypercom Buy-Out
Every corporate merger presents risks to the companies involved and their owners, employees, and customers. Leading U.S.-based point-of-sale terminal maker VeriFone Systems Inc.’s planned takeover of smaller rival Hypercom Corp. is no exception: a recent regulatory filing detailing VeriFone’s merger plans devotes 26 pages to a host of risks. Of …
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