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Internet payments processor PayPal Inc. saw its transaction volume grow 40% in 2005's fourth quarter over the year-ago period, to 139.7 million transactions, according to figures released yesterday by parent company eBay Inc. The processor's fourth-quarter volume, which included holiday activity, was also up 19% over third-quarter traffic. Dollar volume …
Read More »TSYS CEO Upbeat Despite Pending Loss of BofA Consumer Accounts
Philip W. Tomlinson, chief executive of payment processor Total System Services Inc. (TSYS), played up his firm's strong fourth-quarter and 2005 financials and growth prospects today despite the pending loss of the huge Bank of America Corp. consumer credit card file. Columbus, Ga.-based TSYS reported fourth-quarter net income of $49.7 …
Read More »Phishing Trends Take an Ominous Turn As Malware Incidents Rise
Afer a let-up last summer, the phishing scourge appears to be getting worse. The Anti-Phishing Working Group reports the number of unique phishing attacks grew 6.7% in November over the count in October, to 16,882. This represents a new record high for the online fraud, in which criminals use bogus …
Read More »Accounting-Software Firm Sage Buys ISO Verus for $325 Million
In another move by a financial-accounting software company into payment processing, Sage Group PLC is acquiring Verus Financial Management Inc., a privately held independent sales organization, for $325 million in cash. Based in the U.K., Sage markets software used by small businesses to manage finances. Nashville, Tenn.-based Verus provides card …
Read More »Visa Reports $257 Billion for ’05 Holiday Season, with a Dec. 23 Peak
In its final holiday-spending report for the season, Visa USA said today retail spending on its cards hit $257 billion for November and December 2005, up 17.5% from the same period in 2004. Visa says e-commerce activity for the holiday-shopping season totaled $26.5 billion, peaking at $624 million on Dec. …
Read More »Nokia Says Look for New Phone, Busy Stores in ’06 NFC Payment Pilots
Projected pilots in 2006 for contactless payment capability on mobile phones with near-field communication (NFC) technology will include high-throughput retail stores, in contrast to the self-contained environment of a sports stadium, where the first such trial began last week (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 14). Tom Zalewski, head of mobile payment …
Read More »Holiday Card Spending Ramps up in Stores And on the Internet
The week ended Dec. 18 included three of the four heaviest spending days of the holiday shopping season so far, according to the latest report from Visa USA. Spending on Visa-branded cards totaled $5.2 billion on Dec. 16, ranking that day the busiest of the season. Black Friday, the day …
Read More »In a Busy Day, BofA Says Yes to AmEx Network And No to TSYS
Bank of America Corp. announced today it will begin issuing cards on American Express Co.'s U.S. merchant network and also confirmed that an existing issuing relationship between AmEx and MBNA Corp., which BofA is acquiring for $35 billion, will continue. In a separate announcement, third-party credit card account processor TSYS …
Read More »Citi Will Begin Issuing Credit Cards on AmEx’s Network By Month’s End
In a move that has been expected for more than a year, Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank unit announced today it will begin issuing cards on the American Express Co. network by the end of the month. The full offering, which includes five cards with varying benefits, will be available by mid-January. …
Read More »Digital Defense Group Set to Launch a Fingerprint-Secured RFID Card
An Omaha, Neb.-based maker of biometrically secured identity cards says it expects to participate in contactless-payment pilots within three months, with a commercial rollout possible by mid-2006. Five-year-old Digital Defense Group says its credit-card-size token, which contains a fingerprint sensor and an RFID chip, is compliant with MasterCard International's PayPass …
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