Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Nine months after unveiling its digital-wallet strategy, MasterCard Inc. on Monday announced the start of that strategy’s implementation. Known as MasterPass, the new wallet platform enables mobile payments by consumers using either near-field communication (NFC) technology or quick-response (QR) codes to trigger links between handsets and merchant terminals. Wallets based …
Read More »VeriFone’s Stock Plummets After the Company Cuts Its Financial Outlook
The funk at VeriFone Systems Inc. continued late Wednesday when the leading point-of-sale terminal maker said revenues and profits for its first quarter of fiscal 2013 ended Jan. 31 would come in far short of earlier predictions. The downward forecast triggered a selloff in VeriFone’s shares, whose price was …
Read More »PCI Council: Merchants Need To Be Grounded When Mulling Cloud-Based Data Security
Merchants that think by hiring a cloud-based provider to handle their payment card security tasks they’ll never have to worry again about protecting card data had better think twice, according to the PCI Security Standards Council. “Just because people outsource to a cloud service provider, they’re not done,” says …
Read More »Visa Seeks Reconciliation With Merchants As Its Debit Losses Narrow
New Visa Inc. chief executive Charles W. Scharf used his first earnings conference call with analysts Wednesday to offer an olive branch to U.S. merchants. Scharf’s comments came on the heels of an earnings and operational report for fiscal 2013’s first quarter that show strong U.S. Visa credit card growth …
Read More »First Data Names Labry As Interim CEO, Reports Mixed Quarterly Results
First Data Corp. late on Monday named Ed Labry, president of the big processor’s North American unit, as interim chief executive officer to replace current chief executive Jonathan J. Judge, who is retiring early for health reasons. The announcement came less than a day before First Data announced mixed fourth-quarter …
Read More »Forecasters Predict Credit Card Surcharges Will Find Few Takers Come Jan. 27
The surcharging provisions of the credit card interchange settlement announced last July will take effect on Sunday, but observers expect few merchants will take advantage of their new-found freedom to add a surcharge to Visa and MasterCard credit card sales. “I know of nobody” who plans to surcharge, says Mitch …
Read More »New Assessment of Durbin’s Effects Warns Fixed Network Fees Could Crimp Competition
A sweeping review by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City of the Durbin Amendment’s effects warns that competition could be harmed if more payment card networks adopt fixed-pricing plans as they compete for merchant business in the newly regulated debit card environment. The new report is the first of …
Read More »PayPal Says Discover Deal ‘on Track,’ Gets Set to Promote POS Service to Consumers
A buoyant John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay Inc., said on Wednesday that PayPal Inc.’s launch on the Discover Network is “on track” to begin toward the end of the second quarter. A key part of eBay unit PayPal’s strategy to bring its payment service to the physical point of …
Read More »CEO Judge’s Sudden Retirement Casts a Cloud of Uncertainty Over First Data
Citing health reasons, First Data Corp. chief executive Jonathan J. Judge on Friday announced plans to retire. The unexpected retirement casts a cloud of uncertainty over the nation’s largest payment processor as it competes in a fast-changing payments industry and, down the road, prepares for a possible IPO or sale …
Read More »Crimped Financials Drive Dramatic New Acquirer Priority on PCI Revenue
In sharp contrast to only a year ago, independent sales organizations and other merchant acquirers now rank revenue generation as their number-one goal for programs they offer to help merchants comply with the Payment Card Industry data-security standard (PCI), according to a survey set to be released on Thursday. The …
Read More »