It may be cold outside throughout much of the country, but Bank of America says customers are starting to warm up to online banking in a big way. The Charlotte, N.C.-based banking company announced its online banking service has reached 7 million subscribers, making the bank the first financial-services company …
Read More »Airlines Use Heavy Holiday Travel To Promote Ticketing Kiosks
Airlines are taking advantage of the onset of one of the year's heaviest travel seasons to promote their electronic self-service check-in and ticketing machines. Both American Airlines and America West today released statements touting their airport kiosks and encouraging customers to use them in the coming days to avoid long …
Read More »Study Shows Consumer Preference for PIN Debit
A major study on consumer payment preferences at the point of sale released today shows not only a stronger trend toward debit cards generally but also a stronger preference for cards secured by personal identification numbers rather than by signatures. This is despite strong promotion from the major card companies …
Read More »FDC-Concord Settlement Requires FDC to Sell NYCE
First Data Corp. and the Department of Justice this morning announced an agreement in which the government now gives the green light to FDC's acquisition of Concord EFS Inc. and in which the Denver-based processing giant agrees to sell its majority stake in the NYCE debit network. First Data now …
Read More »Visa’s New Debit Rates May Be Only List Prices””
Visa USA Inc.'s newly announced interchange pricing for its signature-based, or offline, debit cards are only the starting point for what will be many rounds of negotiations with larger regional and national retailers, say industry observers. Meanwhile, despite the new rate announcement from Visa, MasterCard International Inc. says it is …
Read More »Visa Comments on its New Debit Interchange Rates
With its new interchange rates for its check cards, Visa USA Inc. says it is moving on a broad front to boost volume on signature-based debit, encourage usage at fast-food and other venues that have not historically accepted the card, and meet the needs of members and merchants generally. “We're …
Read More »Peppercoin’s Big Ambitions in Small Payments
Peppercoin Inc., the Waltham, Mass.-based micropayments startup that only this week emerged from its test phase with a commercially available service, may have a small footprint in the transactions business so far, but its ambitions are big. First, it plans to snag more merchant signings like the one it announced …
Read More »BitPass Gets Set for Prime Time
In an eventful week in the micropayments market, Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup BitPass Inc. emerged from its beta test and opened its service to all Internet merchants interested in using the BitPass system for payments. The company now has more than 300 content sellers enrolled, up from about 200 in …
Read More »Peppercoin Signs Blue Note and Goes Commericial
Peppercoin Inc., a Waltham, Mass.-based micropayments startup, announced today it has signed on to process payments for Blue Note Records, a unit of EMI Music Publishing. Beginning in the first quarter of 2004, Peppercoin will deploy its technology to handle purchases of single songs from Blue Note's site, www.bluenoterecords.radioplayer.com. The …
Read More »Makers of Digital Voting Machines Form a Trade Group
Beset by complaints about the alleged lack of security surrounding their products, six makers of electronic voting machines have started a trade group intended to put to rest public apprehension about electronic voting. The six companies have formed the Election Technology Council in partnership with the Information Technology Association of …
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