In another indication that the days may be numbered for premium short-message service (SMS) as the dominant mobile-commerce payment channel, some 65% of executives in the entertainment, media, mobile, and broadband industries surveyed at a recent conference agreed that payments handled as direct charges by operators' billing systems will be …
Read More »PayPal to Launch Promotion for Express Checkout Merchants
PayPal Inc. will pour as much as $100 million into a new promotional campaign aimed at driving traffic to merchant sites that accept PayPal. The campaign, which kicks off Nov. 23 and includes cash-rebate offers between $10 and $20 as well as free shipping when consumers use PayPal, is entirely …
Read More »A Processor Puts a Different Spin on Back-Office Conversion
Check processor Solutran Inc. thinks it has found a way to make the new back-office conversion (BOC) e-check code more attractive to merchants: take the costly scanning process out the back office and outsource it. Plymouth, Minn.-based Solutran recently announced its SPIN service, for Solutran POS and Imaging Network. The …
Read More »MasterCard Starts Test in Dallas of NFC Payment With OTA Downloads
MasterCard Worldwide announced on Thursday the start of a contactless-payment pilot in Dallas using mobile phones enabled by near-field communication (NFC) technology. The pilot, which is expected to involve about 500 subscribers of 7-Eleven Inc.'s Speak Out Wireless service, is the second real-world test of NFC payment in the U.S. …
Read More »Debit Traffic Soars at MasterCard While Ticket Sizes Drop
Reporting results for its first full quarter as a publicly held company, MasterCard Inc. on Wednesday released statistics showing significant gains for its U.S. debit card brand. Signature-debit cards accounted for 1.39 billion point-of-sale transactions in the third quarter, a 62% jump over volume in the year-ago period. The product …
Read More »Interchange Second Only to Energy Costs on Grocers’ Worry List
With credit and debit cards accounting for nearly 46% of supermarket payments, card-acceptance fees now rank No. 2 behind energy costs among the top concerns of grocery-store executives, the Food Marketing Institute reports in its latest financial review of the grocery industry's financial health. In its 2005-2006 Annual Financial Review …
Read More »Banks’ ATM Surcharges Hit New Record, As Do NSF Fees
The average ATM surcharge assessed by banks has risen 4 cents in the past six months, to $1.64, but a drop in ATM foreign fees means banks will collect $4.2 billion in total ATM charges this year, down slightly from the $4.3 billion they took in in 2005. That's according …
Read More »Check-ACH Coalition Issuing Survey to Help Shape Emerging Proposal
A banking group that is exploring how to merge electronic image exchange with the automated clearing house network expects to distribute a survey on Tuesday to financial institutions seeking to find out what their plans are for image exchange and what barriers are slowing down their movement toward receiving and …
Read More »Online Resources Gets Princeton eCom Boost, Points to New Products
Bill-payment processor Online Resources Corp. on Thursday reported sharply higher third quarter numbers for transactions, clients, and users as the Chantilly, Va.-based company for the first time included results from rival processor Princeton eCom Corp. Online Resources, which acquired Princeton eCom for $180 million this summer, also said its integration …
Read More »Comdata’s New Chief Looks to Acquisitions To Spur Growth
Fresh on the heels of a payment-processing initiative and a new branding campaign, the new chief executive of prepaid and fleet card specialist Comdata Corp.'s parent company told investors on Thursday that Comdata is in the acquisitions market. “The Comdata business is posting strong results driven by a proven, effective …
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