Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
With a number of startup companies now offering bill-pay capability based on smart phones, old-line payments companies are starting to respond with services of their own, relying on their reputations as established players in electronic payments. One of the first is The Western Union Co., which this week introduced a …
Read More »Discover’s Chief Hits Visa’s Strategy To Defend Its Debit Market Share
The chief executive officer of Discover Financial Services isn’t too pleased with what Visa Inc. is doing to retain its lead in the debit marketplace now that the Durbin Amendment’s transaction-routing provisions are in place. Discover owns the Houston-based Pulse network, which like other electronic funds transfer networks stands to …
Read More »Eyeing Larger Merchants, Square Enhances Apps with Loyalty Functions
Hard on the heels of its announcement last week that it is now processing for some 2 million merchants and individuals, mobile-acceptance startup Square Inc. on Tuesday said it has added customer-loyalty functions to its Pay with Square and Square Register applications. The new functions will allow both merchants and …
Read More »PayPal’s Foray into TV Commerce Could Help Recruit Merchants for POS Processing
PayPal Inc.’s latest effort to enter the nascent business of processing transactions for merchandise shown on television—so-called T-commerce—could also help recruit more merchants for the San Jose, Calif.-based company’s point-of-sale payment service, a PayPal executive tells Digital Transactions News. As it turns out, merchants that agree to accept PayPal at …
Read More »Speculation Ends As Apple Unveils a Digital Wallet That Works with QR Codes
Ending months of speculation about is intentions in mobile payments and promotions, computer icon Apple Inc. on Monday entered the increasingly crowded market for digital wallets with an application it calls Passbook. At the same time, the company announced it now has card credentials for some 400 million users on …
Read More »By Mating GoPayment with QuickBooks POS, Intuit Could Steal a March on Square
Intuit Inc.’s announcement on Tuesday that it has integrated its GoPayment mobile-payment processing application with its QuickBooks Point of Sale 2013 software is expected to make GoPayments more appealing to small businesses than rival products from the likes of Square Inc. and PayPal Inc. Earlier this week, Square announced that …
Read More »With New Retail Deals, Square Doubles Locations That Sell Its Card Readers
Merchant processor Square Inc. doubled the number of physical stores at which its now-famous payment card reader for mobile devices can be purchased with Monday’s announcement that the reader is available at Walgreen Co., Staples Inc., and FedEx Corp.’s FedEx Office stores. The three new merchants collectively add 10,000 locations: …
Read More »Startup Claims More Than 1,000 Developers for Streamlined in-App Payment Plug-in
A startup called Zooz this week announced it has registered more than 1,000 developers for a payment plug-in that, the company says, streamlines card-based payments while users are within an app. Zooz, whose product is available for both Android and Apple iOS devices, also launched an HTML5 version to allow …
Read More »Groupon Doubles Down on Its POS Thrust with Acquisition of Hospitality App Startup
Groupon Inc. redoubled its efforts to penetrate the point-of-sale market with its acquisition of New York City-based software startup Breadcrumb, whose product lets restaurants run transactions on iPad tablets. The deal, announced on Tuesday, follows news that the Chicago-based daily-deal giant is testing a mobile-acceptance service in and around San …
Read More »Nordstrom Projects Rollout of Register-Like POS Handsets by Early 2013
High-end department-store chain Nordstrom Inc., which has been testing some 6,000 mobile devices for customer service and checkout, expects to roll out a significantly larger number of the devices in the first quarter of next year and to add as much capability to them as it has on its cash …
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