Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Nashville-based iPayment Inc., a publicly held independent sales organization that has executed a string of acquisitions over the past two years in the rapidly consolidating acquiring market, today announced its acquisition of Transaction Solutions LLC, a Pittsburgh-based ISO serving 4,000 small merchants with $500 million in annual card volume. No …
Read More »An Interchange Tussle with a Twist: Retailers Against Zero Pricing
The Reserve Bank of Australia is likely to mandate zero interchange for debit card transactions at the point of sale linked to personal identification numbers in that country, according to a report in The Age, an Australian news service. This action if taken would follow the Australian central bank's decision …
Read More »America West Becomes First Airline to Adopt Bill Me Later
America West Airlines, a unit of America West Holdings Corp., has become the first airline to adopt I4 Commerce Inc.'s Bill Me Later Internet payment system. To encourage usage of the new payment option, the Phoenix-based air carrier is offering deferred billing for 90 days or more to qualified customers, …
Read More »Way Systems Heats up the Market for Wireless Transactions
The market for wireless point-of-sale credit and debit card transactions is about to heat up. Founded in 2002, Boston-based Way Systems Inc. is introducing a point-to-point processing system that includes mobile phones equipped with card swipes, security and transaction programming, and keypads for personal identification numbers. The swipe, keypad, and …
Read More »Kryptosima Banks on a New Network, New Money, and ISOs
A Hampton, Ga.-based processor that has tried for four years to bring to market a system to enable on the Internet debit card transactions linked to personal identification numbers may be close to signing an additional network for access to PIN debit accounts. Kryptosima, a unit of InstaPay Systems Inc., …
Read More »FDC Hires a Telecom Veteran to Expand ISO Sales Programs
John Barrett, a 16-year veteran of MCI Corp., has joined First Data Corp. to run the processor's merchant-sales operations through independent sales organizations and sales agents. In his position as senior vice president for FDC's third-party sales channel, Barrett will have responsibility for all merchant-sales efforts through third parties at …
Read More »POS Experts Raise Questions About IFX
Proposals to extend a transaction-messaging protocol based on extensible markup language (XML) to the retail point of sale are meeting some skepticism among current and former POS terminal executives. The protocol, known as interactive financial exchange (IFX), relies on the flexibility of XML, an Internet language, to simplify messaging across …
Read More »Atmel and OTI Announce First Major Order for PayPass Gear
On Track Innovations Ltd. and Atmel Corp. announced today they have received the first order for microprocessors in “commercial quantity” for MasterCard International's PayPass contactless payment program. OTI said it also expects orders for card readers to support rollouts of PayPass cards by issuers later this year. The two companies …
Read More »Report: Australian Merchants Don’t Pass on Interchange Savings
Retailers who object to current levels of interchange fees on electronic transactions often argue the levy forces them to charge consumers more for goods in their stores, driving up prices and penalizing customers. But a recent report out of Australia undercuts that argument. It finds that prices did not decline …
Read More »Pay By Touch: Another Store Signs Up, Along with Discover
Pick 'n Save Metro Market, a supermarket in downtown Milwaukee, today began accepting transactions secured by Pay By Touch, a San Francisco-based company that authenticates payments through digital representations of customers' fingerprints. This development comes shortly after the announcement of a co-marketing agreement between Pay By Touch and Discover Financial …
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