Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• Prepaid card services provider Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. acquired extrameasures LLC, a promotions and incentives firm that offers Visa-branded and private-label rewards and gift cards. The deal follows Blackhawk’s acquisitions of other incentives companies, including Parago, InteliSpend, CardLab, and Incentive Solutions.
• Prepaid card provider Green Dot Corp. said it successfully moved 15 million account files to MasterCard Inc.’s Payment Transaction Services processing platform during the second wave of its planned migration to MasterCard’s system; Green Dot said it has now moved 50 million account files, with another 50 million set for migration during the remainder of 2016.
• Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit will no longer support the Google Wallet card as of June 30, the company says in a notice to cardholders posted this week. “Moving forward, we want to focus on making it easier than ever to send and receive money with the Google Wallet app,” says the post, referring to the overhauled Google Wallet, which was re-introduced in September as a peer-to-peer payment service. The company is directing cardholders to American Express Co. and Simple to find replacement cards. Google’s plastic MasterCard, which taps the balance held in Google Wallet, debuted in 2013.
• U.S. Bank released an updated mobile app for Apple Inc.’s iPhone that lets customers log in using Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint technology and includes improved mobile-deposit imaging; the bank plans to add biometric technology to its Android mobile app at a later date.
• A new Government Accountability Office report says that while the Internal Revenue Service has made data-security improvements, it has not implemented some earlier recommendations about protecting taxpayers’ financial and personal information, and needs to enhance its data controls.
