News

December, 2006

• 27 December

  A Suddenly Revived POP Posts Highest E-Check Growth Rate

  The formerly somnolent point-of-purchase (POP) electronic-check code continued on its newfound burst of energy in the third quarter, according to the latest automated clearing house volume report from NACHA?The Electronic Payments Association. NACHA reports POP volume hit 80.5 million transactions, up 92.8% from 41.8 million in the year-earlier quarter. POP's …
• 22 December

  More Vending Machines, Plus Toll Road, Taking Contactless Payments

  MasterCard Worldwide and USA Technologies Inc., which have been working together to equip vending machines to accept card payments, including contactless transactions, have announced the first deployments in a planned 5,000-machine rollout. The two companies also said they are installing gear on the Ohio Turnpike to accept contactless tokens for …
• 21 December

  MasterCard Targets Unbanked With Prepaid Retailer Network

  MasterCard prepaid cards received new utility this week when MasterCard Worldwide launched a network of retailers, dubbed MasterCard rePower, at whose locations cardholders can use cash to add value to MasterCard- and Maestro-branded prepaid cards. The first rePower reload transaction took place Monday at a Village Pantry convenience store in …
• 20 December

  Image Clearing Jumps Ahead of Substitute Checks for the First Time

  Checks cleared by paying banks as electronic images outnumbered substitute checks for the first time in the short history of image exchange in October, according to numbers compiled by the Electronic Check Clearing House Organization, Dallas. The ECCHO statistics, gathered from three primary settlement networks, also show healthy growth in …
• 19 December

  Wall Street Discovers a New Darling: Payment Card Networks

  Less than a year ago, the only publicly traded payment card network stock was that of American Express Co. With Tuesday's announcement by investment-banking giant Morgan Stanley that it will spin off its Discover Financial Services LLC unit, the No. 4 network, there could be four. MasterCard Inc.'s May initial …
• 19 December

  Citi’s New York NFC Pilot First Open Test in U.S. Backed by Major Issuer

  The latest U.S. trial of contactless payment involving mobile phones and near-field communication technology (NFC), set to begin Jan. 10 in New York City, will combine key elements of the two other U.S. pilots mounted so far, and represents the first in which users can access credit cards issued by …
• 18 December

  How ECHO Fits Into Intuit’s ‘Single Payments Portal’ Strategy

  Mutual need brought Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO) and Intuit Inc. together in the $142 million deal, announced last week, that will make Camarillo, Calif-based processor ECHO part of Intuit, Mountain View, Calif., some time in the first quarter (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 15). Intuit, marketer of the popular QuickBooks …
• 15 December

  Intuit Offers $142 Million for ECHO To Cap Payments ‘Portal’

  Intuit Inc. has notched yet another acquisition calculated to augment its widely used accounting software with electronic-payments capability by agreeing to pay $142 million in cash to buy Electronic Clearing House Inc. (ECHO), a publicly held, Camarillo, Calif.-based processor of card and automated clearing house transactions. The deal, which is …
• 14 December

  PayPal Says Monster Signing Sets Stage for ’07 Site Recruitment

  PayPal Inc., the online payment service of online auction firm eBay Inc., has signed another big company in its quest to expand beyond eBay users, and the processor says more such clients are coming next year. This week, Monster, the leading online job-search and recruitment service, said it has begun …
• 13 December

  Rebranded, ClickandBuy Adds an E-Wallet And Phone Billing, Eyes P2P

  Online payments processor ClickandBuy this week announced what it calls “Version 2.0” of its digital-content platform, which includes an electronic wallet, long-awaited billing through two major U.S. phone companies, lower merchant pricing, and a new name, to boot. Parent company Firstgate Internet AG of Zug, Switzerland, has chucked the ampersand …