Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
The Federal Reserve Board is cutting its fees for handling Check 21 items delivered to paying banks electronically but raising tariffs for processing paper checks and the substitute checks authorized under Check 21, a Fed announcement released on Tuesday says. Effective Jan. 2, the Fed's new rates for 2008 will …
Read More »Amid Data Thefts, Visa’s Software Rules Align More Closely with PCI
With five new mandates for merchant acquirers and processors to meet by 2010, Visa Inc.'s Payment Application Best Practices, a set of standards governing payment-processing software, are becoming ever more tightly aligned with the comprehensive Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) promulgated by the major card networks. But mandates may …
Read More »Eye on Earnings: MasterCard, Heartland, Online Resources
The flow of third-quarter earnings reports from payments companies continued this week with MasterCard Inc. reporting a hefty increase in transaction volume, revenues, and profits, while fast-growing merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. weighed in with a 20% increase in processing volume. And the chief executive of bill-payment processor Online …
Read More »Merchants’ PCI Travails Prompt Security Program from Big Blue
With compliance deadlines already passed for some merchants and looming for others, the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) has drawn a bevy of vendors into the market to help merchants cope with one or more of its dozen requirements. Now the biggest vendor yet is jumping in. IBM Corp. …
Read More »BSG Extends Its Bill-to-Phone Service to Mobile Commerce
BSG Clearing Solutions has started talking to sellers of digital merchandise about using a new service that would allow them to take payment for games, songs, and other such goods by charging the items to consumers' wireless bills. The targeted sellers for the new service are so-called off-deck merchants, or …
Read More »The Bell Is About To Ring for an Independent Metavante
A representative of Metavante Corp. will ring the opening bell Friday at the New York Stock Exchange in a ceremony that will cap seven months of work since Marshall & Ilsley Corp., the bank-holding company that founded Metavante in 1964, announced in April the banking services and payment processor's planned …
Read More »Other Shoe Drops As USPTO Affirms Second DataTreasury Patent
For the second time this year, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has upheld a patent owned by DataTreasury Corp, a small software company that is suing major banks and processors for infringement of these and other electronic-payments patents it holds. In a document issued earlier this month to …
Read More »Upon Further Review, Accounts Exposed in TJX Breach Double
Sources reached by Digital Transactions News aren't surprised at the news that the number of credit and debit card accounts affected in the TJX Cos. breach has doubled, as disclosed by court filings and reported this week by The Boston Globe. Although the off-price retailing chain reported in March that …
Read More »It’s Official: Synovus Will Spin off Processor TSYS in $600 Million Deal
Capping months of planning, bank-holding company Synovus Financial Corp. confirmed Thursday afternoon that it would spin off its entire 80.8% interest in payment card processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) to its shareholders. In doing so, Synovus brings up what is likely to be the rear of an extremely active …
Read More »Phishing Takes a Break As Attacks, Hosting Sites Slip in July
The crime of phishing entered midsummer doldrums, offering some relief to financial institutions, merchants, and other organizations engaged in e-commerce, according to the latest report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The number of unique e-mail attacks dropped 17%, to 23,917, in July, while the population of sites launching attacks dipped …
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