Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Payment card acceptance costs have been swept into the furious Congressional debate about credit card interest rates, fees, and terms. Late Thursday afternoon, a proposal was pending in the U.S. Senate that would give merchants greater leeway to offer customers discounts if they use cash, checks, or debit cards versus …
Read More »Online Resources Seeks Peace With Its Biggest Shareholder
After losing a nasty proxy fight last week with his company's largest shareholder, the chairman and chief executive of electronic bill-payment technology provider Online Resources Corp. seems ready to bury the hatchet. “I think it's going to work out,” Matthew P. Lawlor, who co-founded the Chantilly, Va.-based company 20 years …
Read More »CheXout Aims to Bridge Mobile Processors to Physical Payments
Restaurant customers will be able to use their mobile phones to both split and pay dinner tabs with an application now being marketed by Boston-based startup CheXout Systems Inc. The company, which has been incorporated for less than a year and has no live installations, is forging integration agreements with …
Read More »Travelex Gives a Lift to MasterCard’s Year-Old Debit Platform
MasterCard Inc. is getting a big boost from The Travelex Group, a multinational distributor of travel-related prepaid cards. Under a deal announced last week, Travelex will convert its payment card network brand to MasterCard and process card transactions on MasterCard's year-old debit processing platform called Integrated Processing Solutions, or IPS. …
Read More »With Tri-Mode M-Banking, mFoundry Eyes High Growth
In a move to simplify solutions in the rapidly changing mobile-banking market, mFoundry Inc. has added enhanced capabilities to its m-banking product. It now offers text banking (SMS) and alerts, as well as support within the mobile web browser (WAP). The two new modes join mFoundry's mobile applications-based downloadable solution …
Read More »Debit Cards Propel What Growth There Is for MasterCard And Visa
Despite the economic downturn and softening volumes, MasterCard Inc. put in a “solid” first quarter, Robert Selander, MasterCard president and chief executive, said early Friday. “Our volumes have been impacted by significant headwinds, such as slower cross-border travel, lower gas prices, and an appreciating dollar,” Selander said at an analysts' …
Read More »How Nokia’s New Phone Could Be a Shot in the Arm for NFC
Its ultimate significance may prove to be months away, but a new handset introduced last week by Nokia has some mobile-payments observers expressing hope that talk of mobile transactions at the point of sale may now be more realistic. “It is definitely something that will move the conversation along,” says …
Read More »EBay Boss Says PayPal Will Exceed One-Third of Company in ’09
It's been implicit for a while, but eBay Inc. on Wednesday made it clear that it has big hopes for its PayPal payments subsidiary as the company evolves from its core Internet auction business. “PayPal's opportunity and its niche is to power all of e-commerce,” eBay president and chief executive …
Read More »Money Transmitters Shrug off Recession, Downplay New Channels
U.S. automakers and lots of banks are finding their business models under severe stress, but not so money-transfer businesses despite a likely decline in transfer volume this year, according to new research from Aite Group LLC. The industry, especially big players such as The Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International …
Read More »Visa’s payWave Platform Connects with the Vending Machine Market
Contactless payments took another incremental step recently when USA Technologies Inc. struck an agreement with Visa Inc. under which Visa will subsidize the deployment of up to 4,000 of USA Technologies' card-accepting devices for vending machines. The agreement, potentially worth $800,000, is significant because it is the first between Visa …
Read More »