Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Payment processor First Data Corp. has acquired Spree Commerce, a provider of open-source software for 45,000 e-commerce storefronts. The addition of Bethesda, Md.-based Spree could bolster First Data as it competes with processors and tech providers for more business in the fast-growing world of online retailing. “Spree is at the …
Read More »As Holiday Season Nears, System Hiccups Trip Up Virtual Gift Card Offerings
By John Stewart When Nikki Baird and Steve Rowen evaluated retailers’ digital gift cards this year, the thing that surprised them the most was how disjointed the shopper experience is. Card sales that worked just fine at a merchant’s desktop site just didn’t translate well to a mobile device, for …
Read More »With Its Relay API, Stripe Enlists in Effort to Drive up Conversion Rates in M-Commerce
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 »