Perhaps the hottest payment product going for the past several years, debit cards are showing signs of cooling off. “It's almost become a broken record that debit transactions are growing at double-digit rates, but we're seeing a slowing in that rate,” Tony Hayes, a partner at research and consulting firm …
Read More »Google Checkout Hints No Ill Effects Since Merchant Pricing Resumed
Google Checkout, the payment service of Internet search leader Google Inc., continues to add merchants and charge volume, according to a Google executive. But Google remains guarded about revealing exactly how Checkout is faring with merchants, especially after the reintroduction of acceptance pricing in February marked the end of more …
Read More »First Data Gets Major Retail Prepaid Distribution with InComm Deal
With its acquisition of prepaid card transaction processor and program manager InComm Inc., First Data Corp. is picking up one of only a few major distributors of prepaid card products, a move that hands the Denver-based processing giant a substantial stake for the first time in the crucial retail distribution …
Read More »A Renewed Effort at ACH-Based Driver’s Licenses Maps Its Plans
A veteran of previous efforts to turn driver's licenses into payment cards is working with the operator of an online consumer-loyalty network on a plan intended to introduce automated clearing house transactions tied to shoppers' driver's licenses at brick-and-mortar stores by 2009. Linda Bryant, who has formed a processor called …
Read More »‘Challenging’ Times for Visa, MasterCard, But Debit Surges Ahead
Their networks continue to handle ever-increasing transaction volumes, but the chief executives of both MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. warn of “challenging” times for the U.S. payments market, particularly credit. Still, both bank card networks in the past 24 hours reported strong profit growth for their quarters ended March 31. …
Read More »PayPal Launches Its First Mobile Service on a Downloadable Application
In its first move toward a software application for mobile commerce, PayPal Inc. has launched its mobile-payments service on a new product from Sprint Nextel Corp. The Sprint product, called MyMoneyManager, is a downloadable mobile wallet allowing customers to perform banking functions from their handsets. So far, regional banking companies …
Read More »TRM Looks to Revival with $15 Million Deal for Access To Money
After a long period of downsizing and financial turbulence, non-bank ATM network operator TRM Corp. says it's getting its act in order and is ready to grow again. Portland, Ore.-based TRM just bought the New Jersey-based Access To Money network in a $15 million deal that brings another 4,200 ATMs …
Read More »ELayaway Gets Set for Expansion After a Low-Key Start
It's the new, old payment system. That's essentially how an electronic-payments startup called eLayaway LLC is billing itself as it prepares for bigger things following two years of testing and a low-key rollout to merchants and consumers. Tallahassee, Fla.-based eLayaway's slogan is “credit is overrated.” Its system allows consumers, once …
Read More »Non-Auction Sales for PayPal Near Half of Processor’s Total Volume
PayPal Inc.'s drive to process a greater share of its transactions outside of the auction marketplace run by its parent company, eBay Inc., showed more signs of succeeding last week with the release of statistics indicating the online processor is now deriving almost half of its payment volume from online …
Read More »Alliance Data Peddles Its Acquiring Unit As Blackstone Deal Crashes
The troubled buyout of Alliance Data Systems Inc. by private-equity firm The Blackstone Group officially died this past weekend, a death that came as no surprise to the payments industry. But still alive is Alliance's effort to sell its merchant-acquiring business built around the former BSI Business Services Inc. front-end …
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