The failure of Suretap Wallet L.P., the Canadian mobile-payments service controlled by five telecommunications companies, raises further questions about the role, if any, telcos will play in this business, experts tell Digital Transactions News. Suretap, which announced Friday it will shut down effective Aug. 26 after barely more than a …
Read More »Facing an Array of Wallet Rivals, MasterCard Launches a Revamped Masterpass Service
MasterCard Inc. on Thursday rolled out a revamped Masterpass digital wallet it clearly hopes will out-compete offerings from technology titans like Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., all of which have come into the market since Masterpass’s capability the original wallet had at its launch, though it …
Read More »Bitcoin’s ‘Halving’ Poses a Threat to Miners, But It’s One That Could Resolve Itself
Bitcoin watchers held their breath over the weekend when the celebrated “halving” took place, abruptly chopping in half the incentive those who produce Bitcoin receive and raising questions about the impact the event would have on the 7-year-old cryptocurrency. The halving, which is part of Bitcoin’s basic code and so …
Read More »In Acquiring, a Slow Pace of Change Masks Rapid Run-up in Growth for Newer Models
The acquiring business is accustomed to a slow rate of change, but that deliberate pace is masking radical underlying shifts in how merchants handle payments and whom they deal with for processing services, according to research at First Annapolis Consulting, Annapolis, Md. Change comes so slowly in this business that …
Read More »Breach Epidemic May Fuel Fraud, But It’s Also Driving a Search for Password Alternatives
The password is one of the oldest authentication tools known to man, and now it is rapidly becoming the least respected among security experts for use online or in-app. Consumers’ use of easily guessed codes, coupled with a recent barrage of data breaches, has these experts predicting passwords will fade …
Read More »Wal-Mart Completes Its Rollout of Walmart Pay to All 4,000-Plus U.S. Stores
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday announced its Walmart Pay mobile wallet is now available in all of its 4,612 U.S. stores in all 50 states. The rollout’s completion comes about seven months after the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing behemoth introduced the product and about 10 weeks after first making the app …
Read More »An Appeals Court’s Decision Puts Interchange in Play, With an Unpredictable Outcome
The sweeping 4-year-old settlement between card networks and banks on the one hand and merchants on the other, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned Thursday, covered a lot of ground. But the case the agreement grew out of had as its central focus credit card …
Read More »Uncertainty Shrouds Huge Interchange Settlement After Appellate Court’s Stunning Veto
A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a massive agreement initially reached four years ago over card-network interchange and acceptance rules, drawing a sudden veil of uncertainty over crucial legal matters much of the payments industry had thought were all but settled. In a 41-page opinion studded with sometimes …
Read More »SWIFT Attracts 73 Banks Worldwide for Cross-Border Payments Initiative As Pilot Unfolds
The U.S. rollout of EMV is just one chapter—albeit a major one—in an unfolding international payments story, but another one is taking the stage that could have important implications both for faster payments and cross-border transactions. SWIFT, the Belgium-based international financial-messaging organization, announced on Tuesday that 73 financial institutions worldwide …
Read More »Microsoft Introduces a Windows 10-Based Mobile Wallet With NFC Capability
Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday joined the mobile-payments race in earnest by announcing it is making near-field communication capability available on Microsoft Wallet for in-store transactions. The wallet works with Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system. The new payments feature is limited for now to members of Microsoft’s Windows Insiders program “in …
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