Despite consumer concerns over higher prices caused by inflation, spending for the holiday shopping season got off to a strong start over the weekend. Total retail sales in the United States, including in-store and e-commerce transactions but excluding the automotive sector, were up more than 12% on Black Friday from …
Read More »How the Nation’s Biggest Banks Are Working to Address P2P Payment Scams
An ongoing controversy regarding consumer losses to authorized but fraudulent transfers on the Zelle peer-to-peer platform has stirred at least some of the country’s biggest banks to work out a range of solutions, including wider adoption of scam defense and detection technology, sources tell Digital Transactions News. This development comes …
Read More »Backed by a Merchant Group, a TV Ad Pushes the Case for Controlling Credit Card Costs
A prominent merchant trade group on Thursday began running a TV commercial that uses Visa Inc.’s sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup to decry credit card acceptance fees and advocate for a bill backed by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would regulate those costs. The 30-second commercial, which lays heavy …
Read More »COMMENTARY: Recession-Era Fraudsters Are Already Among Us
As businesses grapple with today’s economic uncertainty, many are facing difficult budget and resource constraints. But as company leaders focus on the slowing economy, they must not forget about cybercriminals. Placing fraud prevention on the backburner risks falling behind sophisticated fraudsters, who constantly take advantage of economic uncertainty, and refine …
Read More »Beware of Crypto Scams MyChargeBack Warns And Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/23/22
In the wake of failures by the cryptocurrency lender Celsius and the crypto exchange FTX, MyChargeBack, a transaction-dispute service, warns users to beware of scams involving crypto-recovery promises. FIS Inc. intends to cut “thousands” of jobs, reported Bloomberg.com, in order to cut costs. Balance, a 2-year-old payments platform for business-to-business transactions, announced …
Read More »Eye on Crypto: WooCommerce Partners With DePay; Airswift Launches a Payment Gateway
E-commerce platform provider WooCommerce is partnering with DePay, a decentralized-payment processor, to enable its sellers to accept cryptocurrency directly to a crypto wallet for immediate settlement. Intermediaries that credit the merchant’s account after processing a crypto transaction would be eliminated. DePay supports tens of thousands of cryptocurrency tokens and their …
Read More »Payment Processor And Lender Newtek Gets the Fed’s Blessing To Be a Bank Holding Company
Newtek Business Services Corp., a small-business lender and payment processor, has received approval from the Federal Reserve to become a bank-holding company and financial-holding company through its acquisition of National Bank of New York City. Newtek entered into an agreement to acquire the bank in August 2021. Approval of the …
Read More »Cyber Monday Could See a Big Spending Boost
With just days until the 2022 holiday shopping season begins in earnest, retailers may have a glimmer of hope for more sales if a new survey from Deloitte bears out. In its 2022 Black Friday-Cyber Monday Survey, consulting firm Deloitte predicts that consumers will spend on average $205 on Black …
Read More »Amazon’s Special BNPL Offer And Other Digital Transactions News briefs from 11/21/22
Amazon.com Inc. said it will offer buy now, pay later capability through Nov. 28 via its BNPL partner Affirm Inc. Customers who spend $50 or more will get the option of splitting the payment into three equal monthly installments at zero-percent interest. In related news, online travel platform Expedia Group said U.S. users …
Read More »Visa’s Kelly Will Step Aside as McInerney Prepares for the CEO Role
Payments giant Visa Inc. announced Alfred F. Kelly Jr., a former American Express Co. executive who joined Visa in 2016 as chief executive, will leave that role as Ryan McInerney, Visa’s current president, assumes the title Feb. 1. McInerney came to Visa in 2013 having held the chief executive of …
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