Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By John Stewart With conversion rates dismally low in mobile commerce, technology players have been working to streamline transactions with tools that let shoppers buy with as few clicks as possible and while staying within an app. Late Monday, online processor Stripe Inc. joined that effort with Relay, an application …
Read More »Once a Power in M-Payments, Carriers Now Play a Lesser Role As New Wallets Emerge
By John Stewart With Google Inc.’s Sept. 10 launch of Android Pay, competition in the mobile-payments market heated up to an even higher temperature. But in all the talk about tech companies, handset makers, and banks ushering in services like Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s Samsung …
Read More »Android Pay Arrives, Ready To Displace Old Google Wallet Memories
Google Inc.’s latest foray into mobile payments made its way to the public Thursday when the technology giant announced the release of Android Pay. Available only on smart phones and tablets enabled for near-field communication (NFC) and using the KitKat4 or later operating system, Android Pay enables consumers to load …
Read More »As Traffic Heats up, the ACH Continues To Expand at 5%-Plus Rate
By John Stewart Transactions on the automated clearing house network grew 5.4% in the second quarter, the second straight period of 5%-plus expansion for the 40-year-old system, which reaches virtually every financial institution in the country. That’s according to numbers reported by NACHA, the organization that regulates the ACH. The …
Read More »Looking Past Transaction Fees, Dwolla White-Labels a Quartet of API Functions
When Dwolla Inc. in June eliminated its 25-cent transaction fee, it said it intended to make money by launching value-added services that would leverage the network technology it had created. On Wednesday, it launched the latest chapter in this plan with a white-label service that lets banks, businesses, and government …
Read More »Android Pay Is Very Close to Launch, a Google Executive Declares
By John Stewart Ever since Google Inc. announced its Android Pay mobile-payments service a little more than three months ago, the online search giant has been mum about when the service will be launched. But a Google executive on Tuesday hinted in a public forum that the launch is likely …
Read More »Separate But Tied Together: Why eBay Is Dropping Non-PayPal Payment Methods
By John Stewart PayPal Holdings Inc. and eBay Inc. went their separate ways just 45 days ago, but already the fallout from that split is beginning to make itself felt. EBay is telling sellers on its main online marketplaces that starting Sept. 27 it will stop supporting three electronic payment …
Read More »Lost Sales From Unfounded Rejections Dwarfs Actual Fraud Losses, Report Says
While a seemingly unending rash of data breaches has payments players scrambling to adopt a panoply of fraud-fighting technologies, little attention has been focused on the consequences for issuers and merchants when cardholders are wrongly turned down at the point of sale because of fraud suspicions. It’s a big problem—bigger …
Read More »How Buy Buttons And Single-Click Tech Are Driving Commerce on Smart Phones
By John Stewart Larger screens, buy buttons, and streamlined checkouts are expected to combine to raise the profile of smart phones in e-commerce. And now there are numbers to show just how much retail sales volume the devices will generate. Smart phones will account for $27.7 billion in retail mobile …
Read More »In This High-Stakes Poker Game, Verizon Holds More Cards Than Samsung
By John Stewart Why won’t Verizon Wireless make nice with Samsung Pay? With the U.S. debut of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.’s mobile-payments service just a few days away—and a national launch of Samsung Pay due Sept. 28—all the major mobile network operators have signed on to support the service with …
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