Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
If hype augurs success, the new Square payments application for mobile merchants is off to a promising start. The product, announced this week by a San Francisco startup called Square Inc., is attracting attention not just in the payments business but in the wider business community. That's because Square's founder …
Read More »As a Mobile Shopping App Grows, It Looks to Add PayPal Payment
A comparison-shopping application that works on mobile phones will soon tie into PayPal Inc.'s payment platform, blurring the distinction between online commerce and brick-and-mortar retailing and setting the stage for potentially big transaction volumes. Alexander Muse, co-founder of Dallas-based Big in Japan Inc., says he expects his company's ShopSavvy app …
Read More »How the Rise of Smart Phones Could Unleash a Wave of Fraud
The increasing popularity of smart phones, which has given a big lift this year to consumer adoption of mobile banking and payments, has brought with it an ominous new threat of fraud. Last week, the Dutch security firm XS4All reported on a worm that infects iPhones and allows hackers to …
Read More »As More Banks Fight ID Fraud, Many Still Lag in Alerts, Report Says
U.S. financial institutions have made considerable progress in fighting identity fraud, but still lag in their use of one of the most potent weapons in their arsenal: putting anti-fraud controls in the hands of the consumer. That's according to research released on Tuesday by Javelin Strategy & Research. The Pleasanton, …
Read More »Merchant Attrition Is Top Challenge As Acquirers Look Ahead to 2010
Coming off a tough year in 2009, independent sales organizations and other acquirers rank merchant attrition and shrinking margins as their top challenges as they look ahead to next year. Acquirers also rank mobile-related products as their biggest emerging market for next year, while they plan to invest more in …
Read More »A Battle for Deposits Helps Fuel Bank Interest in P2P Payments
Mercantile Bank of Michigan has an answer for observers who want to know why financial institutions are starting to show an interest in person-to-person payments. It comes down to competition for deposits, says John Schulte, senior vice president and chief information officer at the bank, which will introduce a commercial …
Read More »How Banks Are Looking to Become Serious Players in P2P Payments
Electronic person-to-person payments have been around this entire decade, but they're still largely the domain of specialists such as PayPal Inc. and a host of tech companies. But leading bank processors are getting into the P2P act, and if they're successful they could spur greater usage from the consumer mainstream …
Read More »Despite a Fast Start in Mobile Banking, BofA’s Job Isn’t Done
Bank of America Corp. gave some insights into its fast-growing mobile-banking service, but the bank also acknowledged that it must convince skeptical customers that the service is valuable and secure. Charlotte, N.C.-based BofA started a controlled rollout of mobile banking in early 2007 and launched the service nationwide in the …
Read More »Let 1,000 Flowers Bloom: Inside’s Strategy for NFC Workarounds
Impatience in the electronic-payments business with the snarled progress of near-field communication for mobile payments is prompting a number of technology providers to develop products that can facilitate transactions without relying on full-fledged NFC. Now Inside Contactless, a major supplier of chips for contactless cards, has entered this arena with …
Read More »Ingenico Pitches a PDA for Computing And Card Acceptance
While a raft of players over the past several months have introduced software that equips smart phones to accept cards, Ingenico has introduced a wireless point-of-sale device that combines in one unit the ability to take card payments, print receipts, and act as a personal digital assistant (PDA). The French …
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