Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Despite the frenzy of media speculation it unleashed over the Labor Day holiday weekend, Google Inc.'s application for a patent covering mobile payments draws little comment from the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant beyond a cautionary note that the mobile service may not progress beyond the drawing board. “We file …
Read More »Discover Expands Its Gift Card Franchise Through a Big Mall Operator
Discover Financial Services LLC for the first time is selling its gift card to non-Discover customers and at retail locations through a new agreement with Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc., the nation's second-largest regional shopping mall developer and manager. Under the program, consumers will be able to buy Discover gift …
Read More »Good Consumers Will Show Up for Good Security Measures
Data Insecurity Part 3 For as long as we've had threats to transacting online, there's been a data-security industry poised with a vast array of solutions to protect us, anxiously awaiting evidence of a compelling business case to get things started. But for just as long, it's been axiomatic that …
Read More »Diebold Sees Early Interest in Technology Linking Handsets to ATMs
New mobile-transaction technology developed by ATM maker Diebold Inc. is already attracting interest in the marketplace and promises to change not only the way consumers interact with ATMs but also how they pay merchants and each other. The North Canton, Ohio-based company announced earlier this week it had received five …
Read More »How a Software House Sells Remote Capture Directly to Merchants
Omaha, Neb.-based RemitPro Inc. is teaming up with payment processor Vanco Services LLC to open up a new category of smaller merchants to the developer of electronic-check software while removing the need for those businesses to change banks. RemitPro produces the eRemitPro data-capture and imaging application used by 150 clients …
Read More »NYCE, Fair Isaac Focus on Terminal-Based PIN Debit Fraud Control
Seeking to contain a growing form of payment card fraud, the NYCE Payments Network LLC has called upon risk-control technology provider Fair Isaac Corp. to help it spot fraud at the network's point-of-sale terminals and ATMs that accept PIN-based debit cards. While NYCE is not reporting any unusual fraud, its …
Read More »Visa Gets a Boost for Prepaid Partial Authorization from Shell
Nearly 4,000 gasoline stations branded by Shell Oil Co. have so far adopted a technical change from Visa USA that allows merchants to cut off delivery of a product on a prepaid card transaction as soon as the funds in the account are exhausted. Shell plans to roll out the …
Read More »Pulse Takes Aim at the ACH with New Recurring PIN-less Service
Pulse EFT Association LP, which has become the latest electronic funds transfer network to introduce a commercial PIN-less debit service that allows cardholders to make recurring payments to certain billers, sees the service as a way to take payment market share from the automated clearing house network. “It's a great …
Read More »How a Data-Security Debate Is Holding Back NFC Payments
Tussles between vendors and financial institutions over data security are slowing down progress in contactless payment based on mobile phones, a research firm contends. While MasterCard Worldwide, Visa USA, and major banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have launched trials of handset-based contactless payment in the U.S. …
Read More »How We Have Managed to Turn the SSN into an SOS
Data Insecurity Part 2 In a purely physical world, if you lost your wallet, and your Social Security card with it, you had a pretty good idea that something was amiss, and could report the loss and replace the card, if needed. Today, in a relentlessly electronic life, the Social …
Read More »