Mastercard Inc. is the latest U.S. payments company to take initial steps to operate in China with Tuesday’s announcement it will form a joint venture with NetsUnion Clearing Corp. to establish a domestic bank card clearing entity. The entity formed from the joint venture—Mastercard NUCC Information Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd.—received …
Read More »RILA Urges Lower Durbin Debit Cap and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/11/20
The Retail Industry Leaders Association issued a statement calling on Congress to press Federal Reserve Board chairman Jerome Powell to “set a true rate” for debit card transactions that would reflect the intent of the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act. The amendment regulates debit card transaction pricing for large issuers. Powell is scheduled …
Read More »Eye on Fintechs: Sezzle Sizzles With 1 Million Users and Curve Opens a U.S. Office
Buy-now-pay-later specialist Sezzle Inc. said it surpassed 1 million consumers using its online payment service. Launched in 2016, Sezzle said it had reached 500,000 customers only in August 2019. At the end of the fourth quarter, the company, with corporate headquarters in Australia, said more than 10,000 merchants offer its …
Read More »Four Indicted in Equifax Breach and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/10/20
The U.S. Department of Justice announced indictments against four members of a unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army with computer fraud, economic espionage, and wire fraud in connection with the 2017 data breach at credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. that compromised personal data on approximately 145 million Americans. According to the indictment, the defendants exploited …
Read More »Washington’s ‘Vitriolic’ Mood Isn’t Slowing the March of Major Regulation Affecting Payments
There’s plenty of proposed legislation affecting the payments business just now, and casting a long shadow over all of it is the present atmosphere of partisanship. “The mood in Washington is vitriolic, childish. It’s all-out war,” said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government relations for the Electronic Transactions Association, …
Read More »Nacha Is Building Phixius, a Trusted Conduit for Payment-Related Information
A platform to help ensure payments are made to the proper entity is preparing for a May debut. Dubbed Phixius, the Nacha-developed platform will provide a way to enable the secure sharing of payment-related information. That’s important because the platform, announced this week, could save businesses time in vetting new …
Read More »Delay in Clover Park Opening and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/7/20
A $57 million renovation at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Fla., the spring-training home of the New York Mets recently renamed from First Data Field, won’t be completed by Monday when pitchers and catchers report for preseason workouts, a local newspaper reported. St. Lucie County, which owns the stadium, now hopes …
Read More »Surcharging Is Poised to Gain Momentum As State Bans Fall And Acquirers Spot Opportunities
Surcharges on credit card transactions could pick up momentum now that only four states effectively ban the practice, a panel of experts indicated Wednesday at a merchant-acquiring trade show. That momentum may benefit not only merchants wary of card-acceptance costs but also merchant-service providers that focus on surcharging as a …
Read More »A Hospitality POS Software Developer Becomes an ISO
The hotly competitive arena of integrated payments has prompted PointOS, a hospitality software developer, to register as an independent sales organization to gain better control over payment services it offers. The company, which serves customers, announced its ISO registration this week and calls its service PointOS Payments. “We became an …
Read More »Debit Routing Uncertainty Down Under and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 2/5/20
Australian financial regulators might intervene to stop banks from automatically routing contactless debit card payments to the Visa and Mastercard networks and instead give merchants the option of using the country’s EFTPOS network, Reuters reported.RevSpring Financial Services, a provider of collections-support services for health-care firms and other companies, debuted eVokePay, a payment …
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