Online marketplace eBay Inc. will add business-to-business gift cards from Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. to its roster of products, Blackhawk announced Wednesday. The expansion—Blackhawk already provides other gift card services to eBay—will help the marketplace with its B2B sales, Blackhawk says. Now, businesses can order eBay gift cards to reward …
Read More »Digital-Coupon Redemptions Will Top $91 Billion in Five Years, Says Juniper
Chatbots, quick-response codes, and so-called invisible payments will spur digital-coupon redemption volume to $91 billion worldwide by 2022, forecasts Juniper Research Ltd. These three technologies will propel redemption as consumers increasingly become accustomed to them, says the United Kingdom-based research firm. For example, chatbots, a form of machine learning that …
Read More »More Younger Than Older Consumers Are Okay Shopping Online With Debit Cards
More younger consumers than older ones prefer using debit cards for online shopping, finds the “Holiday Shopping Consumer Survey Results” released by Vantiv Inc. In the survey of more than 1,000 consumers, 32% of Millennials and 27% of Generation X said using a debit card was their preferred online-shopping method. …
Read More »ThreatMetrix Reports a 100% Increase in Third-Quarter Cyberattacks in Just Two Years
It’s not a pretty picture, but then anything detailing the proliferation of cybercrime isn’t likely to have a bright side. ThreatMetrix Inc., in its “2017 Q3 Cybercrime Report,” says it detected and stopped 171 million attacks in the third quarter, a 100% increase from the 2015 third quarter. The report, …
Read More »With Gift Cards, Consumers Are Spending Much More Than the Gift Amount
Gift card recipients spend on average $38 more than the value of their gift cards, a $10 increase from 2016, says First Data Corp. in its “2017 Prepaid Consumer Insights Study” released Wednesday by the giant processor. Based on the responses of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, the report found …
Read More »As the Holiday-Shopping Season Looms, E-Retailers Face Rising Security Challenges
The fourth-quarter holiday shopping season may be a big present in the form of more sales for retailers, but it may also bring with it a lump of coal in the form of amped-up cyberattacks and fraud attempts. Two of the most beneficial measures retailers can take to secure their …
Read More »A Contactless and QR Code Ticketing Future Awaits, Says Report
Consumers’ fondness for using their mobile devices is going to affect mobile ticketing in a big way by 2020, says Juniper Research in its “Mobile & Online Ticketing: Transport, Events & NFC 2017-2020” report released this week. In it, United Kingdom-based Juniper forecasts that by 2020 the number of digital …
Read More »Aiming at Larger Merchants, Square Launches a $999 Point-of-Sale System
Square Inc., which debuted more than seven years ago pursuing micromerchants with a free card reader, launched Square Register, a $999 point-of-sale system designed for larger merchants, it announced Monday. Square Register is a full-sized POS device that has merchant-facing and consumer-facing screens. Also available at $49 a month for …
Read More »Acceptance Issues, Fear of the Unknown Pull Mobile-Payment Usage Down, Researcher Finds
Consumer use of mobile payments has taken a step back, according to new research from Auriemma Consulting Group. The New York City-based firm found that mobile-payments usage is down 5 percentage points to 25% of consumers surveyed from 30% a year ago. And that decline is expected to continue into …
Read More »PCI Council Leadership Shifts Gears, and the Organization Adds 3-D Secure Standards
The PCI Security Standards Council is without a general manager as the organization that establishes electronic-payments security standards prepares to go in a new direction with its leadership. Out is Stephen W. Orfei, who joined the council in 2014 as general manager and replaced Bob Russo, the council’s original G.M. …
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