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In three out of four European consumer tests of mobile television, more than half of the users said they'd be willing to pay for TV content on their handhelds, according to pilot results released today by Nokia, whose phones were involved in all four pilots. The sums these participants said …
Read More »As Banks Reissue Debit Cards, Experts Warn of More Compromises
More banks are reissuing debit cards as suspect transactions pop up throughout the United States and other countries, according to media reports this week. Investigators believe many of the transactions could be related to a security breach at a merchant facility in California that happened late last year, but the …
Read More »SVPCO Hits 1 Million Mark in Average Daily Items for Image Exchange
In an indication of the rapid growth of image exchange, the nation's largest network reports its average daily volume soared 47.3% in February, to just over 1 million items, over the average in January. This represents the first time The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC's SVPCO unit has reached the …
Read More »Chase Rolls out a Prepaid Visa for Low-Income Tax-Refund Recipients
In a new twist on stored-value plastic, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is issuing Visa-branded debit cards to low-income recipients of tax refunds. Working with Volunteer Income Tax Assistance offices in 16 cities, Chase expects the cards to help recipients who qualify for refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) …
Read More »Single-App Terminals Help Drive Financial Results for VeriFone
Sales of high-tech products such as wireless and Internet Protocol payment terminals helped VeriFone Holdings Inc. post a 21% revenue gain in its first fiscal 2006 quarter, but merchants with limited needs also helped out. In an analysts' conference call late Thursday afternoon, chairman and chief executive Douglas G. Bergeron …
Read More »U.S. Encode Readies a CD/Mag-Stripe Card for Online, POS Use
A small San Diego company is working on a new type of transaction card that combines the characteristics of a compact disk and a mag-stripe card, allowing consumers to perform both credit and debit transactions online as well as at physical points of sale. U.S. Encode Corp., incorporated in 2002, …
Read More »Why Info Touch Sees Benefits in 40-ATM Pilot with Cardtronics
The idea of merging financial-services kiosks with ATMs will be tested this spring when Info Touch Technologies Corp., operator of the TIO kiosk network, and ATM deployer Cardtronics Inc. begin driving some 40 machines specially fitted to dispense cash withdrawals and perform kiosk functions such as bill payments. The machines …
Read More »Survey Shows Sizable Opportunity for EBPP in P&C Insurance
Some 73% of homeowner-insurance and auto-insurance customers would be willing to pay their premiums online, yet most of them pay with cash or check and nearly all of them still receive their bills in the mail, according to a new survey. The survey, which points to a significant opportunity for …
Read More »Google’s Payments Moves Excite Comment, But May Not Threaten PayPal
Search-engine giant Google Inc. may be ramping up its electronic-payment capability for users, but it's a long way from competing with PayPal Inc. as a processor of general-purpose Internet transactions, a payments-industry researcher says. “It will take a few years for Google to even consider competing with PayPal, if they …
Read More »How Interchange Wars Are Lending Impetus to Instant Issuance
Heightened tensions over interchange fees are helping to fuel expansion in the market for so-called instant issuance of payment plastics. Englewood, Colo.-based Dynamic Card Solutions, which produces software that lets banks issue Visa- and MasterCard-branded debit cards on the spot to customers, says its revenue grew 53% in 2005, without …
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