While consumer acceptance of mobile wallets has been painfully slow for wallet developers such as Apple Inc., new survey results from the nation’s largest mobile carrier show consumers are quite willing to use mobile apps in some form to buy things. Some 23% of smart-phone owners last year used an …
Read More »Cash Still Dominates in Many Merchant Sectors, ATM Network’s Survey Shows
In this age of mobile payments, online commerce, and millions of places to use plastic payment cards, cash remains highly relevant and popular with consumers, the nation’s leading retailer ATM network insists. Houston-based Cardtronics Inc. on Thursday released results of a survey showing that consumers use cash far more than …
Read More »Royal Canadian Mint Sells Digital-Currency Platform MintChip
Toronto-based loyalty-services and payments start-up nanoPay Corp. has acquired the MintChip digital-currency platform from the Royal Canadian Mint, the organizations announced Tuesday. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed, but nanoPay says it could be revealed at a later date. MintChip gained fame in 2012, just as Bitcoin and other virtual currencies …
Read More »E-Commerce, Especially M-Commerce, Left a Big Mark on 2015’s Holiday Season
Two reports released Friday afternoon about consumer spending in the 2015 holiday season document continued strong growth in online commerce, although one report has e-commerce falling slightly short of earlier predictions. And mobile commerce is the new star of consumer payments. In its final report about the 2015 holidays, Internet …
Read More »Chase Exits ISO Business With Portfolio Sale to First American Payment Systems
Merchant processor First American Payment Systems L.P. on Thursday reported that it bought the independent sales organization portfolio of Chase Commerce Solutions, the merchant-acquiring and payment-processing unit of banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. Neither company would disclose the purchase price or the number of ISOs and merchants involved in the …
Read More »U.S. Processor Offerings Didn’t Generate Much Spark in 2015’s IPO Market
Payment processors Square Inc. and First Data Corp. made headlines in 2015’s market for initial public offerings of stock, but neither company was a standout, according to recent market reviews. In fact, a new analysis by PitchBook, a Seattle-based provider of a data-analysis platform for venture-capital and other financial firms, lists …
Read More »Don’t Just Fill Your Fridge, Shop From a New Samsung Model With a MasterCard App
You thought your refrigerator was just for storing and cooling your food? Think again. MasterCard Inc. says it has introduced the first app that lets a consumer buy groceries from a refrigerator. The app is preloaded into Samsung’s new, high-tech Family Hub refrigerator that features a 21.5-inch touchscreen as well …
Read More »Wall Street Gave a Thumbs Up to Payments Companies in 2015
It was a lousy December for payment stocks, but 2015 as a whole saw shares of electronic transaction processors far outperform the major market indexes, according to a new report from Chicago-based investment firm Barrington Research Associates Inc. Shares of 28 payments companies posted a mean return of 11.47% last …
Read More »The Data-Breach Seesaw: Card Compromises Down, Social Security Exposures Up
Data breaches that compromised credit and debit card information were constantly in the news in 2015, but the number of cards affected is way down from the totals for 2014 and 2013, according to a nonprofit that monitors breaches. The San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center reports that as of …
Read More »New Visa Security Requirements Aim To Reduce Small Merchants’ Data Breaches
Visa Inc. has announced new data-security requirements for small merchants, one of which says that beginning Jan. 31, 2017, merchant acquirers must annually validate compliance by their so-called Level 4 merchants with the Payment Card Industry data security standard. Other new Visa requirements involve qualified integrators and resellers, or QIRs. …
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