Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
First Data Corp. may have become the first third-party processor to achieve certification on Discover Financial Services Inc.'s network, but it almost certainly won't be the last as the card company uses its newly won freedom to win over issuers of the bank card brands, according to the top executive …
Read More »PassMark Goes Commercial, Signs up First Customer
A Woodside, Calif.-based startup company today began commercial production of a two-factor authentication system for Internet transactions and also announced its first customer for the product. PassMark Security LLC, which was founded last year, has sold its PassMark identification system to Stanford Federal Credit Union, Palo Alto, Calif. The 18-year-old …
Read More »Peppercoin 3.0 Debuts with Prepaid And Subscription Capabilities
Peppercoin Inc. today unveiled the third version of its processing system for small-value and micropayments transactions and announced a processing deal with First Data Merchant Services, which is expected to offer Peppercoin's gateway to its base of 3.5 million merchants. Peppercoin 3.0, which adds subscription and prepaid payment capability to …
Read More »A BioPay-Pay By Touch Patent Tiff Takes a New Twist
A simmering patent feud between rival biometric transaction processors BioPay LLC and Pay By Touch has taken another twist with Pay By Touch's acquisition of a patent covering check-cashing services, BioPay's core business. In a news release it issued last week, Pay By Touch claimed its competitor had tried to …
Read More »NACHA Survey: Most Consumers Are Familiar, Comfortable with ARC
A majority of consumers who routinely pay their bills with checks are familiar with the process of accounts receivable conversion, or ARC, and better than half express no objection to the process, according to a survey conducted for the National Automated Clearing House Association, Herndon, Va. ARC is a relatively …
Read More »Discover Processing Deal Caps Year of Gains for First Data
First Data Corp., which spent much of last year integrating its massive acquisition of Concord EFS Inc., has picked up another potentially huge source of transaction volume by winning the processing business for the new Wal-Mart/Discover card announced last week. As a result of the agreement, the Denver-based transaction-processing giant …
Read More »The Benny Debit Card Will Link to Multiple Plans Via North American
North American Health Plans Inc., one of the country's largest third-party administrators of self-funded health-care plans, has begun using Visa- and MasterCard-branded debit cards from Evolution Benefits Inc., an Avon, Conn.-based processor. North American, Buffalo, N.Y., began Jan. 1 issuing Evolution Benefits' cards linked to flexible-spending accounts for its own …
Read More »Traditional Sources of ID Fraud Hit Harder Than Online Channels
For all the publicity phishing has received in the past year as a rapidly growing and particularly insidious form of electronic fraud, it figures as a source of information in identity-fraud cases only 1.7% of the time when the method behind the crime is known. Indeed, online channels as a …
Read More »AmEx: Walgreen’s Changed Its Mind Without Pricing Concessions
American Express Co. made no pricing concessions to Walgreen's Co. to keep the pharmacy giant accepting AmEx cards, a top executive says. Responding to questions from securities analysts during a conference call yesterday to discuss AmEx's fourth-quarter and year-end 2004 results, Gary L. Crittenden, chief financial officer at the New …
Read More »Discover Scores a Volume Coup with GE/Wal-Mart Network Deal
Discover Financial Services Inc.'s deal with GE Consumer Finance Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will lead to a huge volume boost for Discover and help the Riverwoods, Ill.-based company offer pricing to potential issuing partners that exceeds the interchange income they can get from Visa and MasterCard, an expert observer …
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