Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
Financial analysts gave MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. credit for leading a New York Stock Exchange rally Thursday as higher consumer spending on payment cards boosted the networks’ revenues. And processor Vantiv Inc. reported a 42% increase in merchant-processing revenues in the wake of its June acquisition of Mercury Payment …
Read More »Warning: The EMV Chip Card Conversion Will Be Slow and Fraught With Peril
The conversion of U.S. payment cards from the aging magnetic stripe to the Europay-MasterCard-Visa chip card standard will hardly be a seamless transition. That’s the word from a payments researcher and Canadian retail experts who spoke on a panel at a payments conference Tuesday near Chicago. The warnings came a …
Read More »BofA Becomes First Major Issuer to Begin Conversion to Debit Chip Cards
Bank of America Corp. isn’t waiting for 2015 to convert its debit card portfolio to plastic that supports Europay-MasterCard-Visa (EMV) chip transactions. The Charlotte, N.C.-based banking giant announced Tuesday it will begin issuing debit chip cards to new customers in October, with cards for existing accountholders issued as these …
Read More »The Fed Will Leave Its Debit Card Interchange Cap Unchanged for Now
The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday said it would leave its debit card interchange cap for large issuers unchanged despite finding that some of their important expenses either declined last year or had changed little from levels found by an earlier survey. A major retailer trade group said the findings …
Read More »Apple Pay: No Charge for Merchants, But Transaction-Security Fees for Issuers
Apple Inc.’s introduction of its new Apple Pay service for its soon-to-be released iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch raised a huge number of questions in the payments industry. One of the biggest topics of speculation is just how is Apple going to make money from the service, with combines …
Read More »Consumers Shy Away from Target’s Debit Card in the Wake of the Retailer’s Data Breach
Target Corp. on Wednesday reported second-quarter financials reflecting its lowered expectations, but the discount retailer’s top brass also shed some light on how the massive data breach Target disclosed last December affected consumers’ applications for and usage of its private-label payment cards, particularly its debit card. Target’s results confirm that …
Read More »Eye on Litigation: Mitek-USAA Trial Looms; Retailers Appeal to Supreme Court
The spat between Mitek Systems Inc. and USAA Federal Savings Bank over remote deposit capture software is set for trial Sept. 8, but the trial won’t include Mitek’s patent-infringement allegations that had been a key part of the case. In other payments-related legal action, four retail trade groups and two …
Read More »Tokenization Plays the Central Role in Visa’s New Cloud Payment Suite
Visa Inc. moved on Thursday to commercialize mobile payments using cloud-based near-field communication technology with its release of Visa Cloud Payment Solutions. A related development, the announcement of the upcoming debut of a tokenization service, is aimed at locking down cloud-based NFC and other digital payments. The new services include …
Read More »Visa Revamps Its Online Wallet, And Gives It a New Name: Visa Checkout
Visa Inc. says its new online payment service, Visa Checkout, should help improve conversion rates for e-commerce retailers by making it easier for consumers to pay. The service, available in the United States, Canada and Australia, enables consumers to pay online on any device, Visa says. Visa Checkout replaces the …
Read More »Digital Transactions’s Jenisch Wins Industry Achievement Award from MidWest Acquirers
Robert A. Jenisch, publisher of Digital Transactions, Digital Transactions News, and digitaltransactions.net, received the Industry Achievement Award from the MidWest Acquirers Association on Wednesday. The award, which recognizes substantial career accomplishments and contributions in the U.S. merchant-acquiring industry, was given to Jenisch during the MWAA’s annual conference in Lombard, Ill. …
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