Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Ever since MasterCard Inc. introduced its tokenization platform nearly 18 months ago, no third party has been allowed to offer the product, called the MasterCard Digital Enablement Service. That changed Tuesday with the company’s announcement that Giesecke & Devrient is connecting its Convego CloudPay platform to MDES and will be …
Read More »Chase Pay Takes First Important Stride Forward With a Deal for Acceptance at 7,500 Starbucks Stores
When JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its own mobile wallet, Chase Pay, in October, it said the new payments service would begin rolling out by the middle of this year, and on Tuesday the money-center bank announced an important step in that direction. The fledgling service, which is up against …
Read More »MasterCard And Visa Jockey To Cash in on Expected Jump in Payments on Wearables
Payments made via so-called wearables are forecast to soar in the years to come, so Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are positioning themselves to cash in with announcements made Monday at the huge Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. MasterCard unveiled a partnership with WiseKey, a Swiss company whose security …
Read More »Thompson Investments Steps in to Acquire Troubled Powa Technologies
Powa Technologies Ltd., the troubled startup behind PowaTag and the PowaPOS line of mobile point-of-sale gear, is being acquired by Thompson Investments, according to a terse announcement released late Friday. No terms were released. Before Thompson stepped in, London-based Powa Technologies had been reported to be close to appointing management consultancy …
Read More »With Its Payroll Service, Square Seeks Cross-Sell Avenues to New, Larger Merchants
Square Inc. introduced its payroll service for small businesses last June in California, and in the eight months since then Square Payroll has proven to be popular enough that the company added two more states in November and on Wednesday said it is expanding into five more. But while Square …
Read More »Look for Dominance by Smart Phones in Mobile Commerce Very Soon, Report Says
The onset of 2017 will usher in the year of the smart phone in e-commerce, according to a projection released Tuesday by eMarketer Inc. The New York City-based researcher says that next year, for the first time, more than half of all so-called digital buyers—51.2%—will make at least one purchase …
Read More »Payments Execs Already Foresee the Store Checkout Yielding to ‘Uberesque Approach’
While mobile wallets, near-field communication, and EMV have focused all eyes in the payments industry on the physical point of sale, some mobile-payments executives are starting to prepare for what they see as the fading away of the traditional checkout counter. Technology already exists that allows customers to order ahead …
Read More »A Tipping Point May Be Nearing for NFC Terminals, But Some Big Retailers Aren’t Sold
How many point-of-sale terminals have to be enabled for near-field communication (NFC) before the technology becomes a must-have experience for consumers in stores? In the U.S., at least, the answer is 35% of the installed base, according to Osama Bedier, president of Poynt Co., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup that …
Read More »Visa Opens Scores of Its APIs to Developers in a Bid To Speed Payments Innovation
In a move that recognizes the powerful role application developers play in the global payments arena, Visa Inc. on Thursday opened scores of its application programming interfaces to thousands of outsiders worldwide, including merchants, banks, and technology companies. The new program, called Visa Developer, embraces some 155 APIs and includes …
Read More »Eyeing the Market for ‘On-Demand’ ACH Transfers, Dwolla Launches Its Latest API
It’s common for consumers who use a recurring service to designate a credit or debit card that the service provider can charge each month. With the automated clearing house, this is much less common. Dwolla Inc. says that’s because it’s too difficult and time-consuming for most businesses to set up …
Read More »