PayPal Holdings Inc. said it and the Center on Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University, along with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, formed a research project to examine payment methods used to finance illegally-sourced firearms with the goal of combatting the illegal sale of guns.Processor Fiserv Inc. announced its “Scan to …
Read More »RILA Calls for Action on the Fed’s Debit Cap As Powell Testifies Before Congress
Federal Reserve Board chairman Jerome Powell is testifying before Congress this week, and mixed in with questions and answers about interest rates, economic growth, and employment could be queries about when the Fed is going to update its cap on the fees issuers can charge for debit card transactions. At …
Read More »Repay Expands Its Footprint with Ventanex Acquisition
Payment-services provider Repay Holdings Corp. continued its run of acquisitions Monday when it announced it bought Ventanex for up to $50 million. Ventanex is an integrated-payments provider operating in consumer finance, especially mortgage-loan servicing, business-to-business health-care payments, and some other segments. Founded in 2012 and based in the Dallas suburb …
Read More »Mastercard Forms a Joint Venture To Clear Domestic Chinese Card Transactions
Mastercard Inc. is the latest U.S. payments company to take initial steps to operate in China with Tuesday’s announcement it will form a joint venture with NetsUnion Clearing Corp. to establish a domestic bank card clearing entity. The entity formed from the joint venture—Mastercard NUCC Information Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd.—received …
Read More »RILA Urges Lower Durbin Debit Cap and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/11/20
The Retail Industry Leaders Association issued a statement calling on Congress to press Federal Reserve Board chairman Jerome Powell to “set a true rate” for debit card transactions that would reflect the intent of the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act. The amendment regulates debit card transaction pricing for large issuers. Powell is scheduled …
Read More »Four Indicted in Equifax Breach and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/10/20
The U.S. Department of Justice announced indictments against four members of a unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army with computer fraud, economic espionage, and wire fraud in connection with the 2017 data breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. that compromised personal data on approximately 145 million Americans. According to the indictment, the defendants exploited …
Read More »Washington’s ‘Vitriolic’ Mood Isn’t Slowing the March of Major Regulation Affecting Payments
There’s plenty of proposed legislation affecting the payments business just now, and casting a long shadow over all of it is the present atmosphere of partisanship. “The mood in Washington is vitriolic, childish. It’s all-out war,” said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government relations for the Electronic Transactions Association, …
Read More »Delay in Clover Park Opening and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/7/20
A $57 million renovation at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Fla., the spring-training home of the New York Mets recently renamed from First Data Field, won’t be completed by Monday when pitchers and catchers report for preseason workouts, a local newspaper reported. St. Lucie County, which owns the stadium, now hopes …
Read More »Surcharging Is Poised to Gain Momentum As State Bans Fall And Acquirers Spot Opportunities
Surcharges on credit card transactions could pick up momentum now that only four states effectively ban the practice, a panel of experts indicated Wednesday at a merchant-acquiring trade show. That momentum may benefit not only merchants wary of card-acceptance costs but also merchant-service providers that focus on surcharging as a …
Read More »A Hospitality POS Software Developer Becomes an ISO
The hotly competitive arena of integrated payments has prompted PointOS, a hospitality software developer, to register as an independent sales organization to gain better control over payment services it offers. The company, which serves customers, announced its ISO registration this week and calls its service PointOS Payments. “We became an …
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