E-Commerce

The concept of allowing consumers to use debit cards with PINs to make purchases on the Web took a big step forward on Wednesday with the Pulse electronic funds transfer network’s announcement that it is rolling out an online PIN-debit service. With some 4,400 member financial institutions, Houston-based Pulse, which …

Most of the public attention on online fraud centers on traditional merchants seeking to identify fraudulent orders, detect and prevent data breaches, and the like. But fraud also is a major concern for the online-game publishers and social networks that operate exclusively in the virtual world. Because of the unique …

Non-bank threats to banking franchises like electronic payments are nothing new, but if a researcher is correct, banks and the card networks they built could soon find themselves under assault from a whole new batch of players that have found a niche in social networks and online gaming. “I don’t …

Evidence mounted over the past week of the interest at least some major e-commerce processors have in using mobile platforms to penetrate the physical point of sale. First came word that Bling Nation Ltd., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based mobile-payments processor that depends on contactless stickers, is working on an integration …

PayPal Inc. has introduced a capability for its new Adaptive Payments service that lets consumers pay merchants with a credit card while within an application, regardless whether the consumer has a PayPal account. The San Jose, Calif.-based e-commerce processor also announced late last week it is delaying until the fourth …

Even though a policy change PayPal Inc. announced late last week will dramatically increase some online merchants’ acceptance costs for American Express transactions, their overall costs may remain flat or possibly decline, if the experience of one online retailer is any guide. “There’s at least a good chance it’s not …

It started out as a way to pay other people through the wildly popular Twitter social network, but now a recapitalized and re-energized Twitpay Inc. is concentrating on much narrower niches where it sees greater potential. In March, using a homegrown, in-house platform, it started processing charitable donations, and in …

Having seen a significant uplift in mobile-payments volume so far this year, PayPal Inc. along with developer partners have in the past few days unveiled new products and services that could accelerate the processor's growth in this nascent market. PayPal said it is providing payment processing for new mobile-storefront software …

With online bill payment evolving into a mainstream service from financial institutions, the demographic profile of its users also is beginning to look more mainstream, according to new survey results from bank processor Fiserv Inc. But the findings indicate that the bill-pay market’s rapid evolution means banks and credit unions …

Payvment Inc., a San Francisco startup whose shopping-cart software has been enabling transactions for storefronts on Facebook for the past six months, plans to use $1.5 million in new funding to add engineers and expand its network beyond the massive social network. Christian Taylor, the company’s chief executive, tells Digital …