Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
In a time when consumers are using multiple ways—smart phones, tablets, stores, and Web sites—to shop, they are also using new ways to pay. Now, some are choosing to shop using Bitcoin, the best-known virtual currency. Some merchants, like Reeds Jewelers, accept Bitcoin primarily because customers want to use the …
Read More »How Statement Scrutiny and Consumer Choices Could Yield Payment Savings
Merchants, whether they sell online or in stores, consistently have one bugaboo about their payment-processing service: They want it to be cheaper. Online retailers, in particular, which pay higher card-not-present interchange rates, can use some simple practices to make a dent in these costs, as outlined this week in a …
Read More »EMV Could Spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E for Card-Not-Present Merchants
Lost and stolen credit and debit cards equipped with EMV chips may become the bane of e-commerce merchants. As the U.S. payment-card industry begins its gargantuan migration to smart cards, counterfeit fraud at the point of sale should decrease. But fraud in other places very likely will increase. That’s …
Read More »Restaurants Most Likely To Adopt Mobile Payments, Consumers Say in a Survey
Consumers expect restaurants to be the top merchant type to adopt mobile payments, especially as they envision it simplifying the payment process. That’s the finding of a survey from independent sales organization Harbortouch Payments LLC, which also products point-of-sale products for restaurants and other merchants. In the survey of 1,000 …
Read More »EMV for Small Merchants Is a Hard Sell, But It’s Easier With The Right Approach
Selling payments services to small merchants is never easy. Now, throw in EMV and its attendant complications, add in merchant ignorance of the technology, and the sales pitch gets more complex. With the impending liability shift set for Oct. 1, independent sales organizations, acquirers, processors, and banks are scrambling to …
Read More »Apriva Issues Software Development Kit To Ease Mobile-Payment Integration in Apps
It’s no secret that one cool use of smart phones and tablet computers is the ability to use apps. Research firm eMarketer Inc. predicts that 93% of U.S. smart-phone users will download and install at least one app in 2015, and 90% of tablet users will, too. It’s also …
Read More »Security, Costs Weigh on Issuers as They Ponder Their EMV-Issuing Strategies: Report
Payment card issuers considering the conversion of their credit and debit cards from magnetic stripes to EMV chip cards need to consider not only the cost, but the security and reputational factors of doing so, says Computer Services Inc., a banking-services company. In its new “The Road to U.S. …
Read More »Chase Begins Issuing EMV Debit Cards, Expects To Reach 70% of Cardholders by Year’s End
Banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co. has begun issuing EMV debit cards, with plans to convert its entire debit card portfolio of 34 million cards to chip by the end of 2016, Chase announced Tuesday. Chase began testing chip-enabled debit card issuance in Arizona and Illinois two months …
Read More »For Now, Consumer Habits Hamper Mobile-Payments Adoption for Many: Javelin Report
Few doubt the tremendous growth in mobile payments as consumers increasingly wield their mobile phones at the point of sale. In fact, consumers spent approximately $4 billion doing just that in 2014, a marked increase from the $961 million in 2013, says the “Mobile Proximity Payments Forecast 2015,” a new …
Read More »Dining, Travel and Household Needs Fueling Retail Sales Growth: Visa
Consumers continued to make retailer tills ring in the first quarter, increasing sales, minus automobiles and fuel purchases, at a 4.5% growth rate over the same period in 2014, finds Visa Inc.’s latest Retail Spending Monitor. Overall retail sales growth, include automobile sales, was a modest 1.2%. The largest …
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