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Mocapay Inc., one of the earliest startups in the mobile-payments space, finally is poised to go national with new partners, a different pricing model, and a broadened set of technological options that its president says makes payments by smart phone easier for merchants and consumers. Mocapay launched in 2006 and …
Read More »Research Identifies an E-Commerce Premium, But How Long Will It Last?
A longstanding truism in the acquiring business is that smaller merchants tend to generate more profit than their larger counterparts. But now research has emerged to show that smaller online merchants are even more profitable for acquirers and processors than brick-and-mortar stores of the same size. In fact, across all …
Read More »Durbin Produces Contracts for First Data’s Star, But Results Are Months Away
Leading payment processor First Data Corp. reported on Wednesday that its merchant-acquiring operations are enjoying a temporary profit lift and its Star electronic funds transfer network has won more than 20 new contracts from financial institutions as a result of the Durbin Amendment. But whether those new contracts actually …
Read More »To Sign Merchants Nationwide, Square Heads to Campus To Recruit a Sales Force
n San Francisco-based Square posted a notice for a “Square U Representative” position last month on its Web site and has put out reminders about it this month through Twitter as well as a feature story about it on its Facebook page. The job posting indicates the position is …
Read More »MasterCard’s ‘Road Map,’ Including Merchant Incentives, Lifts Industry Hopes for EMV
Ever since Visa Inc. released a major policy statement in August regarding chip cards in the United States, observers have waited for the other shoe to fall from competing card networks, especially Visa’s biggest rival, MasterCard Inc. That void began to fill in late on Monday with MasterCard’s release of …
Read More »Shazam Announces Network-Wide Availability of Mobile Acceptance Including PIN Debit
The Shazam electronic funds transfer network on Wednesday announced it is making available across its network a mobile-payments service that lets stores, tradesmen, and other merchants accept PIN-debit transactions as well as credit and signature-debit payments. With the rollout, the service is available to nearly 1,500 member financial institutions and …
Read More »Fraud From Euronet Breach Hits Mag-Stripe Cards, Spares EMV Chip Cards
Payment processor Euronet Worldwide Inc. reported on Monday that part of its European businesses sustained a computer security breach late last year. The disclosure is of interest to the U.S. payments industry as it moves slowly toward adoption of EMV chip cards because most European cards have both a chip …
Read More »Protests Might Remove Acquirers From the Online Piracy Fray
The Internet revolt over bills in the U.S. House and Senate aimed at thwarting online piracy might have a welcome side effect for merchant acquirers in possibly getting them out of an unwanted role as deputies charged with enforcing public policy. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia captured international headlines Wednesday when …
Read More »Marching to the Point of Sale, PayPal Strikes Its First Terminal Agreement
n Ingenico has been piloting PayPal acceptance for six months, Greg Burch, director of business development at the terminal vendor, tells Digital Transactions News. Burch refuses to name the merchant involved in the pilot, but news emerged last week that Home Depot, which uses Ingenico devices, is testing PayPal …
Read More »PayPal Says It Did $4 Billion in Mobile Volume in 2011, Projects $7 Billion for This Year
PayPal Inc. on Wednesday projected its mobile-payments volume this year will reach $7 billion, nearly doubling the $4 billion it now says its mobile service processed in 2011. The final number for last year came in significantly higher than the $3.5 billion PayPal was estimating late in the year and …
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