Competitive Strategies

Mastercard Inc.’s latest SpendingPulse report says year-over-year holiday sales increased 4.9%, their best showing since 2011. Online sales grew 18.1%. The report for the Nov. 1-Dec. 24 period covers all payment types, including cash and checks. Without being more specific, Amazon.com Inc. said “millions” of members of Amazon Prime shopped …

Due to a data breach that affected an unknown number of customers, Nissan Canada Finance, the financial division of automaker Nissan’s Canadian operation, is contacting all of its 1.13 million current and former customers; the breach may have compromised customer names, credit scores, loan amounts, and other information, Nissan said. …

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its intention to extend once again the effective date of its massive 2016 rule governing prepaid accounts “to allow additional time for implementation of the final rule.” The announcement does not specify a new effective date. The agency had earlier extended the deadline from …

Swipe, confirm sale, and sign. Swipe, confirm sale, and sign. Checkout on a point-of-sale system is a routine engagement for today’s consumers, and as such, many businesses overlook the opportunities that a POS system can provide. As an advisor to these businesses, you can inform them that POS is no …

The holiday shopping season may be coming to a close, but mashups between mobile-wallet providers, merchants, payment card networks, and card issuers are likely to continue indefinitely as all groups seek more transaction volume from consumers. Apple Inc. has been active this holiday season. In one promotion, Apple is offering …

Point-of-sale system maker Touch Dynamic debuted the Breeze Ultra All-In-One POS terminal. Payment Data Systems Inc. said it will sell 1.18 million shares of common stock to institutional investors at $2.55 per share. The merchant processor anticipates net proceeds of $2.75 million after expenses, which it will use for general …

Shares of the small merchant processor Net Element Inc. surged more than 200% Wednesday morning, apparently for no other reason than the company announced it was creating a business unit to pursue opportunities in the nascent blockchain industry. At about 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, Miami-based Net Element’s stock was priced …

Chargeback.com Inc. released the Chargeback App to aid employees in managing a retailer’s chargeback disputes. The commerce-technology provider Big Commerce agreed to make Visa Checkout available to its more than 55,000 merchant clients. More than 28 million card accounts are enrolled in Visa Checkout, which streamlines the payment process with users’ …

The blockchain, mobile commerce, fraud, data breaches, and authentication were all hot payments topics in 2017. Expect that to continue into 2018 if the prognostications from several payments executives hold true. Much of their outlook centers on identity and authentication, especially as data breaches, large and small, continue to wreak …

The slow conversion of U.S. gasoline pumps from acceptance of only magnetic-stripe payment cards to EMV chip cards took a step forward Tuesday when payment technology provider NCR Corp. announced that a convenience store in upstate New York had completed its first outdoor EMV transaction using an NCR Optic upgrade …