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In the wake of Bitcoin’s continuing problems with price volatility and unstable processors, the future of virtual currencies got even cloudier over the past week on news that the Royal Canadian Mint plans to sell its MintChip digital-currency system. Rumors that MintChip was on the block had been circulating …
Read More »NACHA Unveils Opt-In Program To Reduce Exceptions in ACH Bill Payments
In a further escalation of its war on costly bill-payment exceptions, automated clearing house governing body NACHA on Monday announced a new program that will convert erroneous electronic bill payments that otherwise would go through as paper checks into ACH transactions with a new field where the biller can enter …
Read More »Star Strikes Deal with MasterCard in the Latest Common AID Pairing
After a string of news from Visa Inc. about partnerships with electronic funds transfer networks to facilitate debit transactions with chip cards, MasterCard Inc. got back in the game Thursday with the announcement that First Data Corp.’s Star network will use MasterCard’s so-called common application identifier (AID). n Visa has …
Read More »Banks That Sued Trustwave and Target Have Second Thoughts and Withdraw Lawsuit
Two banks that sued Target Corp. and data-security services provider Trustwave Holdings Inc. in the wake of Target’s massive data breach have withdrawn their federal lawsuit after filing it only a week ago, leaving payments-industry observers wondering why they brought the action in the first place. In separate motions filed …
Read More »Pulse Deal Gives Visa’s Common AID Nearly Universal Enablement for Chip Debit Transactions
Discover Financial Service’s Pulse subsidiary last week became the latest debit network to license Visa Inc.’s so-called common application identifier (AID) on soon-to-be-issued Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip debit cards. This latest agreement means Visa’s common AID will be enabled on cards that account for nearly 90% of U.S. PIN-debit transactions. The …
Read More »Target Clarifies Number of Consumers Affected by Breach, Claims Data Security Improving
Target Corp. told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday that the overlap in the number of consumers affected by the two-headed monster of its data breach may be 12 million or more. The nation’s No. 2 general retailer also said it is improving its data security in the wake of the …
Read More »Banks Sue Trustwave, Target’s PCI Services Provider Before the Retailer’s Data Breach
Trustwave Holdings Inc., the leading provider of Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI) services to merchants, on Monday became the target of a lawsuit arising from the massive data breach at Target Corp. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago by two banks, claims negligence on the part …
Read More »Sen. Durbin Decries Appellate Court’s ‘Giveaway’ to Banks; Merchants Mull Their Next Steps
An appellate court’s Friday decision reinstating the Federal Reserve Board’s controversial interpretation of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin Amendment with its debit card interchange cap and transaction-routing requirements continues to draw fire, but whether the merchants and retail groups that brought the appeal and lost will trudge on in court remains …
Read More »Look Within Thyself for the Most Effective Fraud-Prevention Solutions, Some Merchants Say
The coming of Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip cards to the U.S. has many American merchants worried about the inevitable shift of credit and debit card fraud from the point of sale to online channels. EMV cards, while highly effective in thwarting counterfeiting and related card-present fraud, offer no more fraud protection …
Read More »Report Documents the March of Online Alternatives to the Payments Mainstream
Alternative payments? So many people are now using services such as PayPal, Amazon Payments, Google Wallet and others that the term is becoming outmoded. In a new report, Javelin Strategy & Research says eight in 10 online shoppers have used an online alternative payment service in the past year, and …
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