French chipmaker Inside Contactless this week announced it has shipped more than 50 million MicroPass chips for contactless payments since introducing the product in November 2005. And, though the company used the occasion to promote its optimism about contactless payments in North America particularly, a number of observers remain skeptical …
Read More »Due out in October, PCI Update Will Consist of Tweaks, Council Says
The rules for protecting cardholder data will be updated in October, the PCI Security Standards Council announced on Wednesday. The PCI Council, the organization the payment card networks set up in 2006 to oversee the so-called Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI DSS, is billing the coming changes more …
Read More »Cap One Says Its Decoupled Debit Card Pilots Ended on Schedule
Capital One Financial Corp. ended a pair of merchant pilots involving its decoupled debit card product because the tests were scheduled to end, a spokesperson for the financial-services company tells Digital Transactions News. “They were initiated as pilot programs and they've run their course. That's it,” says the spokesperson in …
Read More »Robust for Years, Debit Growth Expected to Weaken, Study Says
Perhaps the hottest payment product going for the past several years, debit cards are showing signs of cooling off. “It's almost become a broken record that debit transactions are growing at double-digit rates, but we're seeing a slowing in that rate,” Tony Hayes, a partner at research and consulting firm …
Read More »‘Challenging’ Times for Visa, MasterCard, But Debit Surges Ahead
Their networks continue to handle ever-increasing transaction volumes, but the chief executives of both MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. warn of “challenging” times for the U.S. payments market, particularly credit. Still, both bank card networks in the past 24 hours reported strong profit growth for their quarters ended March 31. …
Read More »A Renewed Effort at ACH-Based Driver’s Licenses Maps Its Plans
A veteran of previous efforts to turn driver's licenses into payment cards is working with the operator of an online consumer-loyalty network on a plan intended to introduce automated clearing house transactions tied to shoppers' driver's licenses at brick-and-mortar stores by 2009. Linda Bryant, who has formed a processor called …
Read More »PCI Council Will Tighten Data-Security Rules, Details to Come
The Payment Card Industry data-security standard, or PCI, is in line for its second upgrade since the PCI Security Standards Council took over development of the standards for protecting cardholder data from the major card networks in 2006. PCI Council general manager Robert Russo announced the coming upgrade Wednesday at …
Read More »Terminal Maker VeriFone Steps into the Busy Data-Security Arena
VeriFone Holdings Inc., a major terminal manufacturer, is entering the burgeoning business of card-data security with a product it says will secure cardholder information from the instant the card is swiped. The product, VeriShield Protect, was announced on Wednesday and encrypts mag-stripe data and the personal account number for the …
Read More »MasterCard Looks to Pick up Debit Volume And Share with IPS
Debit is where the transaction growth is, and now MasterCard Inc. is positioning itself at the center of the action with a new debit-processing platform for card issuers that it calls Integrated Processing Solutions. IPS handles everything from ATM and signature- and PIN-based debit card transactions to prepaid cards?and it …
Read More »WaMu’s Contactless Plunge Could Win over Skeptical Merchants
Washington Mutual Inc.'s announcement this week that it plans to issue 12 million to 15 million debit cards with MasterCard Inc.'s PayPass contactless functionality this year may do more than make the $328 billion bank the No. 1 PayPass issuer. It just might give the nascent contactless market enough critical …
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