Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
It's the summer of change in the executive suites of some major payment-industry companies. Two days after No. 1 processor First Data Corp. named a new chief executive, struggling payment-terminal manufacturer Hypercom Corp. announced that William Keiper, its chief executive for not quite two years, would leave his post Aug …
Read More »The Fed Says Just Four Check Sites Will Handle Paper by 2011
After years of steadily reducing the number of offices processing checks, the Federal Reserve Banks announced on Tuesday they plan to have just four regional centers providing paper check processing services by March 2011. Since the Fed system began restructuring its check-processing operations in 2003, it has already cut the …
Read More »PropertyBridge Brings PIN-less Debit to Residential Rent
PropertyBridge Inc., which handles electronic rent payments on behalf of property managers, plans to launch next month a recurring PIN-less debit option. It is processing some PIN-less transactions now in a test, or so-called “beta,” mode, for an unnamed property-management firm, says Jason Gardner, president of the Oakland, Calif.-based company, …
Read More »TJX Confronts Another Big Bill Linked to Card-Data Breach
The bills from the computer hacking at off-price retailer The TJX Cos. that compromised at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards keep rolling in. The Framingham, Mass.-based operator of the T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and other chains took a pre-tax charge of $20 million ($12 million after-tax) to cover investigative, …
Read More »Will MasterCard Win, Cap One Card Unleash Debit Brand Switching?
MasterCard Worldwide received a double dose of good debit news last week. First came the news that big credit card issuer Capital One Financial Corp. is rolling out a MasterCard-branded rewards debit card that doesn't require the cardholder to have a deposit relationship with Cap One (Digital Transactions News, June …
Read More »‘Biggest Thing Since PayPal,’ Cap One Card Bids for Debit Share
A new Capital One Financial Corp. MasterCard debit card that Cap One can market nationwide like a credit card has the potential to vault the financial-services company into the top ranks of debit card issuers and help MasterCard Worldwide swipe debit market share from Visa USA, the payments expert who …
Read More »Expert: Banks Should Mine Data Troves to Build Merchant Loyalty
Consumers are more loyal to the form of payment they prefer than they are to any particular retail brand, a situation that could work to the benefit of card issuers and processors but also merchants, a retail consultant says. In a survey cited by Gary Charboneau, president of Wakefield, R.I.-based …
Read More »Credit Card Veteran Saunders Says He’s Hip to Electronic Payments
Visa International Inc. on Tuesday reported that it has named Joseph W. Saunders, the card-industry veteran it selected as interim leader of Visa Inc. in February, as the entity's permanent chairman and chief executive officer as it prepares to unify its far-flung regional organizations and become a publicly held company. …
Read More »Approached by Suitors, eFunds Starts a ‘Strategic Review’
Processor eFunds Corp. today gave further momentum to a financial transformation of the transaction-processing business by announcing that it has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. to explore what it calls “strategic alternatives” that could result in a merger. The eFunds disclosure comes just over a month after announcements …
Read More »Soaring Debit Traffic Helps Propel Revenue And Profit at MasterCard
Surging U.S. debit card traffic is helping to propel revenues and profits for MasterCard Inc. as the Purchase, N.Y.-based network marks its first full year as a publicly held company. Point-of-sale debit card activity for the company hit 1.5 billion transactions in the first quarter, up fully 48% over the …
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