Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
A San Antonio, Texas company that specializes in clearing and settling consumer charges for telecommunications companies has signed up seven sellers of digital content for a new online payments gateway that lets users charge downloads to their phone bills. The seven undisclosed merchants are the first clients for what BSG …
Read More »Unfazed by Wal-Mart Pullout, Home Depot Presses on with ILC Plans
Home-improvement giant Home Depot Inc. is pressing on with its plan to get an industrial-loan corporation charter despite a hostile political environment that has only grown stronger over the weekend. Opponents to ILC applications by commercial enterprises notched a victory Friday with Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s decision to abandon its efforts …
Read More »An Investor Letter Sparks a Tussle Between the Terminal Kingpins
A letter from a major Hypercom Corp. investor to the point-of-sale terminal maker's chief executive advising a stock buyback and referring to a possible sale of the company, made public Friday in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing, has prompted rival VeriFone Holdings Inc. to target Hypercom customers with an …
Read More »NACHA Greets Debut of BOC with Cautious Expectations
Today, the much-heralded back-office conversion electronic-check code goes live on the automated clearing house network. But rather than throw a huge birthday party, executives of the ACH's governing body, NACHA?The Electronic Payments Association, and banks are marking BOC's debut in a decidedly low-key manner. BOC will allow retailers and other …
Read More »Digital Insecurity: No Place Left to Hide
10 Tipping Points for the Payments Industry Part 10 Years and years of finger-crossing while pushing ever-more unprotected financial account data across an expanding array of vulnerable origination points and networks have come to a sudden and long overdue demise. When and how the electronic payments industry finally gets serious …
Read More »Consumers Blame Merchants Most for Card-Data Security Lapses
As card data breaches continue to garner headlines, retailers may suffer the most in the eyes of U.S. consumers. Some 63% of consumers say merchants do the least to protect credit and debit card information, compared with 16% who say this about transaction processors and 5% who say Visa and …
Read More »Adding QuikTrip, Tempo Payments Pumps Up Its Issuing Ranks
Tempo Payments Inc., the PIN-debit alternative network for retailers, has signed another large gas-station/convenience-store chain to its issuing ranks. Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip Corp. will offer a rewards card program in a phased rollout beginning in the second quarter involving 50 stores in an unspecified market, Tempo announced this week. Privately …
Read More »How Pay By Touch Hopes to Use Opticard to Add Merchants, ISOs
Pay By Touch Inc., the San Francisco company best known for its biometric authentication system for point-of-sale transactions, this week saw its merchant-processing unit take a step calculated to extend its reach into new merchant markets and attract more independent sales organizations to resell its services. Under this week's agreement, …
Read More »Survey: Mass Reissuance May Be Overkill in Merchant Breach Cases
A recent survey indicates debit card issuers may be overreacting to database breaches that compromise card data held by merchants. Nine out of 10 debit card issuers have received notice in the last few years that their cards could have been compromised in a breach, and of these, some 87% …
Read More »A Down-Market Strategy Can Revive First Data?And Maybe the Industry
10 Tipping Points for the Payments Industry Part 9 The very existence of 17,000 financial institutions in this country defies most conventional economic logic, which says efficient markets usually consolidate and concentrate around the biggest and best participants. But in the payments realm, bigger is not always better. That's why …
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