Debit Cards

With the political debate about proposed federal regulation of debit card interchange and card-acceptance terms raging on, analyses of the so-called Durbin Amendment’s effects are emerging. Two new ones suggest consumers would see little or no benefit, if benefit were defined as lower retail prices because of merchants’ reduced card-acceptance …

Visa Inc. has “relaxed enforcement” of the July 1, 2010, deadline for petroleum retailers to install software that meets the so-called Triple Data Encryption Standard (also called 3DES or TDES) in response to requests from the major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, the card network said in a statement released this …

Fresh from their Senate victory May 13, proponents of interchange regulation on Tuesday urged U.S. House of Representatives leaders to adopt the so-called Durbin amendment that could limit debit card interchange and overturn some bank card network rules in order to make it easier for merchants to discount for other …

Continuing its massive clean-up in the wake of the payment card industry’s biggest data breach, merchant acquirer Heartland Payment Systems Inc. late on Wednesday announced a $41.4 million settlement with MasterCard Inc. The settlement will reimburse MasterCard debit and credit card issuers for their costs stemming from the breach Heartland …

Payments-industry partisans of all stripes got onto their soap boxes on Friday and Monday to praise or denounce U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s successful amendment that could pave the way for regulation of debit card interchange and acceptance terms. Merchant interests basked in the surprisingly large (64-33) victory they scored late …

Interchange regulation is one step closer to reality after the U.S. Senate late on Thursday approved an amendment that would require the Federal Reserve to determine “reasonable and proportional” transaction fees for debit cards. Banks earn an estimated $15 billion annually from debit card interchange fees. The Senate approved the …

The gap in acceptance costs between PIN-based and signature debit, once wide, continues to narrow, payments executives say. The trend is most apparent in the new interchange schedules for Visa Inc.’s Interlink electronic funds transfer network and the signature-based Visa check card. A number of Interlink rates are rising by …

The PCI Security Standards Council on Wednesday released updated guidelines governing PIN-entry devices that incorporate all the rules into a single set of requirements. Previously, there were three separate sets of requirements for point-of-sale PIN entry devices (PED), encrypting PIN pads (EPP), and unattended payment terminals (UPT). Version 3.0 of …

Online PINless debit transactions could get a boost if a package of four new mobile-payments services from Obopay Inc. proves to be a hit. Dubbed Mobile Money for Banks, Obopay’s new white-label service has another interesting twist besides PINless debit in that it will enable consumers to accept payment cards. …

Reflecting recent trends noted by the payment card networks, merchant processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc. reported on Thursday that it is beginning to see a turnaround in charge volume at merchants battered for the past two years by the retrenchment in consumer spending. Heartland also disclosed that it has expensed …