Mother's Day-related spending on jewelry and chocolates on the Internet drove a 24% increase in e-commerce volume for VeriSign Inc., to $4.4 billion, the Mountain View, Calif.-based transaction gateway for online merchants said today. Transaction volume for the company during the period measured, April 25 through May 8, jumped by …
Read More »New Members Help Fuel Record Growth for Credit Union 24
Credit Union 24, the largest electronic funds transfer network in the nation owned by credit unions, said today it had seen transaction volume soar by a record 35% last year, to 140.9 million from 104.7 million in 2003. The network, based in Tallahassee, Fla., credits new members and an expanded …
Read More »New Study Decries Interchange Caps, Favors Merchant Networks
With card interchange rates becoming a subject that even central bankers are beginning to ponder, a long-time analyst of the electronic-transaction market has released a report arguing that overall acceptance costs are often more favorable to merchants in the U.S. than overseas and that merchants would be better off developing …
Read More »First Data Deal Helps Drive Doubling of Business at iPayment
Nashville, Tenn.-based independent sales organization iPayment Inc. today reported its revenues and processed charge volume more than doubled in the first quarter compared to the year-ago period, with much of the growth driven by a December acquisition of a merchant portfolio from First Data Merchant Services. In a conference call …
Read More »Why Ritz Camera Decided to Adopt PayPass Throughout Its Chain
Ritz Camera Centers Inc., which last week announced it would adopt MasterCard's PayPass contactless card program chainwide, says it hopes to use the technology to hasten photo-finishing customers through the checkout process. “They're in the stores two or three time a week, and they want the service to be kind …
Read More »Phishing Perks up in March As Fraudsters Target More Brands
After a slowdown in February, the number of Web sites engaged in phishing frauds increased at a faster clip in March, reaching 2,870, according to data released by the Anti-Phishing Working Group, an organization of software firms, payment companies, and law-enforcement agencies that tracks the online fraud. The 6.9% increase …
Read More »New Merchant Group Forms to Win Regulatory Relief on Interchange
A Washington, D.C.-based organization formed early this year by retail-industry trade groups says it is beginning to work out a plan of attack that it hopes will lead to regulation of the fees card-accepting merchants pay issuing banks. After years of friction between banks and merchants over the subject, this …
Read More »Could Back-Office ACH Conversion Slow Consumer Check Decline?
A proposed method by which retailers could take checks they accept at the point of sale and convert them in a back office into electronic transactions on the automated clearing house could hinder an encouraging trend among consumers away from writing checks and toward electronic transaction channels, such as credit …
Read More »Web-Connection Specialist Shift4 Moves Record Volume in March
Transaction gateway Shift4 Corp. reports it processed $1.1 billion on more than 13 million transactions in March, marking the first time the company has exceeded the $1 billion level in a month. Las Vegas-based Shift4, which specializes in connecting hospitality merchants and entertainment venues to back-end processors via high-speed Internet …
Read More »Star Pilots Recurring PIN-less Payments, Explores Real-Time Web Debit
Star Networks Inc., which processes more PIN-less debit transactions than any other network, is launching a pilot to test PIN-less debit for recurring payments and is exploring a concept that could extend direct debit of checking accounts to online shopping. The latter concept, says Tom Gandre, senior vice president of …
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