News

April, 2007

• 13 April

  CheckFree’s Market Grows, But Biggest Customer Could Bolt

  Never wanting for hype, the electronic bill-payment industry may actually have something solid to crow about. Bill-pay processor CheckFree Corp. released a survey this week saying that for the first time, Internet-connected households are paying more bills electronically than by paper check. Tempering the good news for the Norcross, Ga.-based …
• 12 April

  Visa Hikes Overall Interchange 0.6%, Effective April 14

  In a terse announcement released on Thursday, Visa USA said its overall effective interchange rate for the coming year will be 1.77%, up 0.6% from the 2006 systemwide rate. Without giving further details about its new rates, Visa said it will post a rate card laying out its entire schedule …
• 11 April

  Fraudsters Are Starting to Score Successes Against Online Banking

  Most banks report that their online-banking and bill-pay channels are experiencing no or only modest increases in fraud, according to a new survey from Boston-based research firm Aite Group LLC. But that's no reason to rest easy, says the researcher who oversaw the survey. Aite surveyed 21 of the top …
• 11 April

  Web Performance Could Help Elect the Next U.S. President

  Could the 2008 presidential election be influenced by the candidates' Web sites?and in particular, those sites' ability to process online donations? A report released on Wednesday by Gomez Inc., a company specializing in Web-site performance measurement, would seem to suggest it might be. According to an online poll of prospective …
• 10 April

  Having Snagged 2Checkout, ATM Direct Aims at More Merchants

  A processor that allows consumers to pay online with their PIN debit cards signed its second merchant this week and expects 18 more by the end of the year, including two more this quarter. “I feel good about the conversations we're having now with top online merchants,” says Robert Ziegler, …
• 9 April

  Processors Report Major Leaps for Image Exchange So Far in ’07

  After months in which banks struggled to cope with the technology and rules surrounding image exchange, check processors so far in 2007 are reporting remarkable leaps in image-exchange volume. The nation's largest image-exchange network reported Monday its March volume hit 177.4 million items, up 507% over March 2006. Volume was …
• 5 April

  FDC’s Authentication Play Sets It up for Contactless And M-Commerce

  First Data Corp. this week captured big headlines with its $29 billion plan to go private (Digital Transactions News, April 2), but another development at the company could also have a significant long-term impact on the electronic-transactions business. The big processor late last month reported it has licensed patents from …
• 5 April

  HSBC’s New Rewards Program Could Spark Growth for Tempo

  Tempo Payments Inc.'s alliance with HSBC Retail Services appears to be bearing fruit. HSBC's new OptiPay loyalty-rewards PIN-payment program, announced earlier this week, will be the first outside card program to run on Tempo's network. Positioned as a low-cost alternative to the major payment card networks, San Mateo, Calif.-based Tempo …
• 5 April

  Obopay Says Response ‘Super Positive’ for New M-Commerce Platform

  Mobile-payments processor Obopay Inc. expects to have at least 20 merchants accepting transactions through its new platform by the end of the year, a top executive with the Redwood City, Calif.-based company says. Obopay introduced its so-called mobile merchant platform, which extends the 2-year-old processor's reach beyond person-to-person payments into …
• 4 April

  Citi Expects New Mobile Service to Reach More Than Half of Accounts

  The new mobile-banking application unveiled by Citigroup Inc. this week will penetrate more than half of the banking giant's U.S. consumer accounts within five years, an executive at Citi says. The application, dubbed Citi Mobile and set to debut Friday in California, represents the first rollout of an electronic-banking and …