Having recently struck deals that will bring it to the physical point of sale, e-commerce processor PayPal Inc. has now branched into an entirely new market. Working with a television-technology specialist in Plano, Texas, PayPal has positioned itself to handle what promises to be a burgeoning flow of transactions from …

Most of the chatter about who will win or lose when the Federal Reserve Board releases its debit card interchange regulations and related rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law centers on card issuers, payment networks, and merchants. But technology vendors are likely to be affected too. One company that …

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have ignited a promising start to the 2011 holiday spending season that appears to signal a revival in consumer spirits following a deep recession and wobbly recovery, according to a number of statistical indicators that have been released this week. Transactions on Monday at some …

After an extended testing period, Discover Financial Services is rolling out its Discover Zip contactless payment system. The card network says an undisclosed number of cardholders began receiving contactless cards in the mail Nov. 15, while others received contactless stickers that attach to their mobile phones or other items. More …

A trade group representing more than 50 major U.S. merchants released a position paper on Monday calling on the payments industry to move resolutely toward mobile payments with near-field communication (NFC) capability and chip-and-PIN technology. The Merchant Advisory Group, based in Dallas, sent the five-page paper to card networks, major …

Next year is likely to be a breakthrough year for a technology that lets consumers deposit checks using a camera-equipped mobile phone, according to a research report released this week. While mobile remote deposit capture (RDC) has been confined to a handful of pilots and has had its share of …

Often overlooked as the trend toward mobile payments picks up steam is the extent to which mobile phones, and especially smart phones, influence transactions even if they aren’t used to consummate them. The most recent example of this notion is a finding by IDC Retail Insights that 28% of consumers’ …

Contactless debit cards will make their formal debut in Canada next year with the launch of Interac Flash from Acxsys Corp.’s Interac Association, Canada’s national debit network. Interac’s first two Flash issuers are Scotiabank and RBC Royal Bank, which will roll out their first contactless cards next summer. The first …

Banks that have both issuing and merchant-acquiring operations might generate more charge volume and make more money if they started taking advantage of new opportunities presented by online group-couponing companies, merchant-funded rewards programs, and mobile-phone-based marketers to help their merchant clients increase sales, Aite Group LLC says in a new …

Closed-loop prepaid cards are growing more slowly than their newer, open-loop cousins, but recent numbers from big payment card processor First Data Corp. show the closed-loop sector still has plenty of life. First Data’s monthly SpendTrend report for October shows reload dollar volumes on closed-loop cards increased 25.2% from October …