Online marketplace eBay Inc. will add business-to-business gift cards from Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. to its roster of products, Blackhawk announced Wednesday. The expansion—Blackhawk already provides other gift card services to eBay—will help the marketplace with its B2B sales, Blackhawk says. Now, businesses can order eBay gift cards to reward …
Read More »Real-Time Payments Create New Possibilities—And Competitive Issues
Unless there is a potential fraud issue or customer dispute, very few of the trillions of transactions that cross U.S. electronic payment networks annually attract any attention. But the first transaction on The Clearing House’s new real-time payments system was so different that BNY Mellon, the bank originator, invoked the …
Read More »The Clearing House’s Real-Time Payments System Goes Live
The Clearing House’s much-anticipated real-time payments system, dubbed RTP, went live late Monday afternoon, ushering in a new era of faster electronic payments in the United States. The transaction between The Bank of New York Mellon Corp.’s BNY Mellon subsidiary and U.S. Bancorp’s U.S. Bank was completed at 4:59:40 p.m. …
Read More »Digital-Coupon Redemptions Will Top $91 Billion in Five Years, Says Juniper
Chatbots, quick-response codes, and so-called invisible payments will spur digital-coupon redemption volume to $91 billion worldwide by 2022, forecasts Juniper Research Ltd. These three technologies will propel redemption as consumers increasingly become accustomed to them, says the United Kingdom-based research firm. For example, chatbots, a form of machine learning that …
Read More »Visa And Mastercard Grow In Europe As Issuers Drop Electron and Maestro Brands
As in the United States, Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. dominate card payments in Europe, but now the two U.S.-based card brands are growing on that continent partly at the expense of smaller brands they own. European issuers are systematically switching Visa Electron and Mastercard Maestro cards to simply Visa …
Read More »With Gift Cards, Consumers Are Spending Much More Than the Gift Amount
Gift card recipients spend on average $38 more than the value of their gift cards, a $10 increase from 2016, says First Data Corp. in its “2017 Prepaid Consumer Insights Study” released Wednesday by the giant processor. Based on the responses of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, the report found …
Read More »Bank Joint Ventures Still Crimping First Data’s Merchant Unit
Most components of First Data Corp.’s massive merchant-acquiring machine performed well in the third quarter, and the company renewed its acquiring contract with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer. But new merchant referrals from First Data’s joint ventures with three big U.S. banks remain problematic. “These businesses have remained …
Read More »Acceptance Issues, Fear of the Unknown Pull Mobile-Payment Usage Down, Researcher Finds
Consumer use of mobile payments has taken a step back, according to new research from Auriemma Consulting Group. The New York City-based firm found that mobile-payments usage is down 5 percentage points to 25% of consumers surveyed from 30% a year ago. And that decline is expected to continue into …
Read More »Zelle Notes 60 Million P2P Payments in the Third Quarter
Zelle, the bank-backed person-to-person payments network, says a daily average of 65,000 consumers enrolled in the service in the third quarter, helping to push its volume to more than 60 million P2P payments valued at $17.5 billion. Zelle, which is owned by Early Warning Services LLC, says more than 50 …
Read More »Eye on POS Terminals: Ingenico Device Available in Canada While Elavon Debuts Poynt
Point-of-sale terminal maker Ingenico Group said its Telium Tetra POS terminal is now available in Canada through TD Merchant Solutions, the first Canadian acquirer to offer the device. Separately, processor Elavon, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, made the Poynt Co. POS terminal available in Canada. Ingenico said its touchscreen, countertop …
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