Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• The Home Depot Inc. filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. for alleged lax security practices and a preference for higher-margin signature authentication with EMV chip credit cards over more secure PIN authentication, according to the Associated Press. A MasterCard spokesperson told the AP that the chip alone makes transactions much more secure regardless of the cardholder authentication method, while Visa said it was aware of the suit and would respond later. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recently sued Visa over similar issues.
• Florida-based Stonegate Bank has issued a MasterCard that is the first U.S.-issued credit card intended for use in Cuba; the bank earlier was the first U.S. financial institution to issue a debit card for use in Cuba, which payments firms are eyeing as a new growth market in the wake of the partial relaxation of the U.S. trade embargo.
• Ingenico Group announced it will integrate the MintChip digital-cash platform into its Telium line of smart terminals in an agreement with nanoPay Corp., which acquired MintChip in December from its developer, the Royal Canadian Mint.
• Fiserv Inc. introduced its Verifast: Palm Authentication solution, which authenticates banking customers in the branch by reading the unique pattern of veins in their palms when they hold their hand over a reader. The authentication takes about one second.
• KeyBank said it is now supporting Alphabet Inc.’s Android Pay mobile-payments service.
• Data-security provider Netsurion named POS Solutions a partner, enabling it to resell Netsurion’s Brand Guard services bundled with POS Solutions point-of-sale products.
• Payments company Payveris launched PayWatch, a fraud-prevention service built for its platform.
• CardConnect Corp., which offers a payments platform and transaction gateway for small businesses, appointed Abe Marciano chief information officer. Marciano comes to the company from PayPal Holdings Inc.’s Braintree unit.
