In anticipation of the swelling of check-image volume that Check 21 is expected to unleash, Viewpointe, a national image-exchange network and archive for electronic checks serving 10 banks, has engaged Accenture, a technology-services and consulting firm, to help prepare the company's platform to handle large image-exchange volumes. Viewpointe's archive stores …
Read More »E-Checks Help Fuel Double-Digit Growth in ACH Volume
The automated clearing house system handled more than 10 billion electronic transactions in 2003, and the conversion of checks into ACH debits helped fuel the growth, according to statistics released today by the National Automated Clearing House Association at its annual conference in Seattle. Total ACH transactions reached 10.017 billion …
Read More »Acquirers’ AmEx Fees Could Offset Losses to the T&E Giant
Bank card acquirers are increasingly tacking on fees to handle American Express Co. transactions at terminals they deploy for merchants, a tactic that may work in their favor as AmEx signs on more banks as issuers of the T&E company's products. That's among the major findings of the most recent …
Read More »Could Qpass’s Wireless Model Work for Web-Based Micropayments?
While various startups attack the problem of enabling payments for small-value games, songs, and other content on the Web, a working model may already have established itself in the world of mobile commerce. Seattle-based Qpass Inc., a 7-year-old company that makes software that connects content sellers to mobile operators' billing …
Read More »Coinstar Moves into Electronic Transactions with its CellCards Deal
With its acquisition of CellCards of Illinois LLC, Bellevue, Wash.-based Coinstar Inc. is making a play that takes advantage of two key trends in the electronic transactions market: rising sales of prepaid value products and the increasing importance of the so-called unbanked consumer market. With a network of some 11,000 …
Read More »InphoMatch Gets Set to Catch the Wireless Wave in Premium Content
The largest processor in the U.S. cross-carrier short-message service (SMS) market is getting set to enter the market for premium content services, also known as MMS (multimedia services), just as wireless carriers are beginning to introduce new billing capabilities to handle the high-margin product. Chantilly, Va.-based InphoMatch Inc. has formed …
Read More »Visa Looks to a Sweepstakes to Promote Check Card Transactions
Visa USA has announced a sweepstakes promotion for this summer aimed at increasing transactions on its signature-based debit card. The Visa check card, on which Visa introduced permanently lower interchange rates effective Jan. 31, offers Visa debit card issuers less revenue than was the case before last year's settlement of …
Read More »A Check 21 Guide Seeks to Aid Training, Cut Confusion
With banks and other players in the electronic transactions arena scrambling to get ready for the implementation in October of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, some 16 financial-services companies and associations have published a guide to the law. They hope the new 20-page document will be used …
Read More »TransFirst’s Fifth Third Deal Bulks up Its Processing Heft
TransFirst, a Dallas-based merchant processor, expects its acquisition of the third-party processing business of Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions to drive down its transaction costs and give it a sharper edge when it comes to pricing. The deal, announced yesterday and expected to close April 1, will add 90 million …
Read More »Why Piggly Wiggly Went with Biometric Payments
Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., a Charleston, S.C.-based chain of supermarkets with stores in South Carolina and Georgia, has adopted a payment system secured by biometrics primarily to increase its share of technologically savvy, white-collar customers. “It sends a message that we're trying to be cutting edge,” says David Schools, senior …
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