Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and EMV won’t be fully implemented in the United States for some time to come, but at least some foreign observers who have experienced nationwide deployment of the Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card standard are starting to show impatience with EMV’s sluggish U.S. progress. Fearing a …
Read More »Nine Months After Launch, Isis Usage Sputters Among Small Merchants
Nine months after the Isis mobile wallet launched in Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City, usage among small merchants appears to be sporadic at best, despite considerable fanfare and promotion at the launch. But some of the factors blamed by merchants contacted by Digital Transactions News have little to do …
Read More »With Discover Link Active, eBay Boss Says PayPal Seeking to ‘Build Out’ POS ‘Ubiquity’
PayPal Inc.’s point-of-sale initiative, which has seen the e-commerce processor penetrate thousands of stores while stirring controversy with at least some incumbent processors, will focus on achieving “ubiquity” and solving consumer “pain points” for the next several years, eBay Inc.’s chief executive said on Wednesday. The initiative, which began early …
Read More »A Startup Sees Dramatic Growth with an API for Two-Click E-mail Transactions
As mobile-payments strategists struggle with clunky checkouts that lead to abandoned sales, a startup based in Albuquerque, N.M., is seeing dramatic early success with a 3-month-old solution that allows consumers to buy products from e-mail messages with a pair of clicks. The company, @Pay LLC, has signed up more than …
Read More »Acquiring Giant Vantiv Agrees to Buy Litle & Co. for $361 Million
In a move that will greatly expand its business in card-not-present transaction processing, merchant processor Vantiv Inc. announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Lowell, Mass.-based Litle & Co. for $361 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close later this year and will result in 11-year-old …
Read More »Merchants Wring More Than $7 Billion out of Networks, Banks in Credit Card Settlement
The card networks, major U.S. banks, and U.S. merchants reached a $7-billion-plus settlement late on Friday, capping a seven-year battle over credit card interchange and network acceptance rules. If approved by the court, the settlement will be the largest such agreement ever in an antitrust case. Under the terms of …
Read More »Private-Equity Player GTCR Swoops in to Snatch Fundtech from S1’s Grasp
In yet another twist in the ongoing corporate drama involving payments-software firms S1 Corp., Fundtech Ltd., and ACI Worldwide Inc., news emerged early on Thursday that Fundtech is spurning S1 in favor of what it views as a better offer from GTCR, a Chicago-based private-equity firm with a history of …
Read More »TSYS Cements Strategic About-Face with Takeover of First National Merchant Solutions
Total System Services Inc. on Tuesday brought to an end a short-lived joint venture with First National Bank of Omaha by buying the 49% of FNBO unit First National Merchant Solutions LLC it didn’t already own. In the deal, TSYS paid FNBO $169.6 million for the remaining stake, implying a …
Read More »How the Wal-Mart Settlement Could Pay for PIN Pads
This spring’s settlement between the bank-owned card associations and retailers led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been widely interpreted as a blow to the fortunes of so-called PIN-based debit, or debit card transactions effected by a consumer’s personal identification number rather than his signature. That’s because the settlement terms required …
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